“Because ye was all a-worryin’ of me on, I suppose,” retorted Letty, with a sharpness very unlike her usual merry and good-humoured self.
“Ye didn’t ought to go for a thing and not stick to it,” said her friend, vexed to see such a good piece of fun fall flat. “But there, ye’ll do it yet. Ye never was one to cry ‘’Ware!’ There’s no ’arm in it. It’s only for a bit of a lark, and he’s fair sport, he’s such a mooney, thinkin’ as he can walk through without seein’ us. I like his cheek.”
“Well, there’s no tellin’ what I may do and what I mayn’t do,” said Letty, tossing her head, and in that she was perfectly right, and many had said it of her before.
“The gloves’ll be beauties, that I’ll take my oath of,” said the girl encouragingly as she went.
Nevertheless time passed, and nothing of great moment occurred in this interesting duel that so many were eagerly watching, while one at least of the combatants was unaware of being engaged in it.
One day, coming home from the next station where she had been to see a married sister, Letty found herself alone in the same carriage with Bob Frewin, who had had occasion to go to the town hard by. And though no one could exactly accuse him of an on-coming disposition, any one who had seen him would have allowed that the postman was more friendly than he had been to a girl for many a long day. Letty had noticed it herself, and though piqued by his manner on that wet Sunday, she had begun with her proudest and most off-hand mood—the mood that always “fetched” the men, but which, to do her justice, she would not have dreamed of intentionally trying on such a tough customer—she lapsed into her apologetic and gentle manner long before the journey was over. And when they reached their destination, and Letty, in shame-faced distress, found that she had dropped her return ticket, and must pay the fare over again, it was not Frewin’s loan that she would accept to replenish her empty purse. As it so happened, Mr. Lambert was there, going off to London, and it was his shilling that Letty chose to take, declaring that as he lived close by, she could the more easily repay it.
It was what the men called a woman’s excuse that didn’t bear sifting, and it naturally had the effect of sending Frewin off with a flea in his ear and a sour face, so that the miller very cheerfully declared to Letty in confidence, that he didn’t see any call to buy the gloves in readiness, as he had intended to do that very day.
Things, in fact, were not going at all hopefully for Letty’s wager, which was perhaps the reason why she was going about with a more serious expression than her careless beauty had ever worn before, and why she never appeared on the bridge of an evening now, and even went past knots of her old comrades in the village with a hasty nod or such a conscious bit of chaff as might have betrayed to any one her unusual state of mind.
Bank Holiday loomed in the near distance without the wager being any nearer the winning than three weeks ago. And if it had not been for an unforeseen incident perhaps it would never have been won at all. But won it was, and this was how it came about.
It was a bright, clear spring morning. A keen east wind was blowing the cherry-blossom about, and the narcissus and daffodils along the cottage path swayed beneath it; but the sun was shining, and it was a good drying day, so Letty had just set to at the week’s washing, and was standing with her arms white in suds, when she saw Frewin open the gate and come slowly—very slowly—up to the door. She dried her hands and went to open it.