All seemed to be drifting.

She had no solid anchor.
"Any--day you say--the sooner the--better," she whispered.
"Wal, lass, I'm thankin' you," he replied, with voice that sounded afar to her.

"An' I swear, if I didn't believe it's best fer Jack an' you, why I'd never let you marry....

So we'll set the day.

October first! Thet's the day you was fetched to me a baby--more'n seventeen years ago." "October--first--then, dad," she said, brokenly, and she kissed him as if in token of what she knew she owed him.