"I would rather marry Alec, an' sit beside him in a kitchen, than marry Lanky, an' drive in a carriage."
"Well, I am astonished at you! Where is your thankfulness to your Maker for pitchforking you into a silk gown and carriage?"
Annie began to cry. Misery was creeping in. Happiness was melting away like sugar in a teacup.
She fell asleep, and forgot her troubles. Mrs. Coonie kept awake all night, turning over in her mind Annie's fortune on one side, and her love to Alec on the other. Her thoughts were bright, or dark, at intervals, like the revolving lantern on a lighthouse.
The sun rose like a red-hot cannon-ball, hitting the bull's-eye in the window pane, and splintering fragments of light over Mrs. Coonie's face.
"This is no time to lie in bed," she said to herself; "I'll get up, for I've much to say and do. I must go home and tell him" (meaning her husband). "I'll be bound he's snoring in bed, and knowing no more about all this than a sucking baby."
Suiting action to words, she jumped out of bed and dressed herself.
Annie awoke from a troubled dream. Tears stuck in her eyelashes like dewdrops in the grass. She wiped them away, and looked up with a woebegone face.
"Annie," said her mother, "I am going home to tell your father. We'll come over by ten o'clock with the buggy. Dress yourself in your best frock. We'll all go to Benalla, and if Mr. Wilber wants to marry you off-hand, he can, this very day. The sooner the better. He won't want to see you work as a servant another minute, I'm sure."
Annie looked through the window. In a moment she was out of bed, and had thrown her clothes on, anyhow; then she ran into the kitchen, opened the door, and stared out. A horse, with a saddle on, was cropping the short, yellow grass. The bridle was muddy, and trailing on the ground.