“I’ll be bound, he thinks that very thing. Dick is far gone. But the girl is fair and good. He might do worse.”
“I don’t like her, far from it.”
“She is always busy in some kind of work.”
“Busy to a fault.”
“I’ll tell thee what, my Joy. We shall hev to make the best we can of this affair. If Dick is bound to marry her, some day their wedding will come off. So there is no good in worrying about it. But I am sure in the long run, all will be well.”
“My mind runs on this thing, and it troubles me. Thou ought to speak sharp and firm to Dick. I am sure Josepha hes other plans for him.”
“I’ll break no squares with my lad, about any woman.”
“The girls all make a dead set for Dick.”
“Not they! It hes allays been the other way about. We wanted him to marry pretty Polly Raeburn, and as soon as he found that out, he gave her up. That is Dick’s awful way. Tell him he ought to marry Faith, and he will make easy shift to do without her. That is the short and the long of this matter. Now, Annie, thou must not trouble me about childish, foolish love affairs. I hev work for two men as strong as mysen to do, and I am going to put my shoulder to the collar and do it. Take thy awn way with Dick. I must say I hev a fellow feeling with the lad. Thou knows I suffered a deal, before I came to the point of running away with thee.”
“What we did, is neither here nor there, the circumstances were different. I think I shall let things take their chance.”