Preston looked away, twirling his cap in his hands. He did not like to ask her why her own name was not on the letter; that would have seemed like prying. So he was silent.
“Won’t ye sit down?” said Bess, in a minute. “Father’s out, but he’ll be back soon, and mother ’ll be down in a minit. Unless ye’d like to leave a message?”
“No, I ain’t got no message,” said he. “I seed yer father this morning.” He paused, and then added nervously: “If the truth’s to be known, I come to see you.”
Bess did not answer. She was not surprised, and it did not occur to her to pretend to be so. She was vexed, but looking down at the letter in her hand she was so happy that she forgot it.
He woke her from that dream.
“I seed yer father this morning,” he was repeating. “He said ’e thought I’d best not wait till Sunday come round again.” He paused once more, and then with a blush blurted forth—“’E said as ’ow ’twas ’is opinion I was a-beatin’ about the bush too much, and you’d sooner ’ave the thing done and settled with off-’and.”
“Done and settled with,” faltered Bess quite awake now!
“Yes—regardin’ me and you,” he went on more courageously. “It’d be a good marriage. I ain’t no beauty, nor yet much for smartness, may be. But I can give ye a comfortable ’ome, and I ain’t got no bad ’abits. I’d make ye a good ’usband, s’elp me God.”
She put her hand to her head. The words recalled something to her, but she was so dizzy she could not remember what. Then it flashed across her that Charley had used them down there in the wood, under the falling leaves the night when he had kissed her good-bye.
She sat down, looking at her letter.