I hastened my steps. I here duly and with the strictest regard for the truth aver, that I decidedly hastened my steps at this very unnecessary announcement. But he, with another covert glance behind him towards the barn, from which, to my surprise and increasing anxiety, William had not yet emerged, kept well up to me, and only paused when I paused at the side of the road near the buggy.
"Miss Butterworth," he began, undeterred by the air of dignity I assumed, "I have been thinking that your visit here is a rebuke to my unneighborliness. But the business which has occupied the lane these last few days has put us all into such a state of unpleasantness that it was useless to attempt sociability."
His voice was so smooth, his eyes so small and twinkling, that if I could have thought of anything except William's possible discoveries in the barn, I should have taken delight in measuring my wits against his egotism.
But as it was, I said nothing, possibly because I only half heard what he was saying.
"I am no lady's man,"—these were the next words I heard,—"but then I judge you're not anxious for flattery, but prefer the square thing uttered by a square man without delay or circumlocution. Madam, I am fifty-three, and I have been a widower two years. I am not fitted for a solitary life, and I am fitted for the companionship of an affectionate wife who will keep my hearth clean and my affections in good working order. Will you be that wife? You see my home,"—here his eye stole behind him with that uneasy look towards the barn which William's presence in it certainly warranted,—"a home which I can offer you unencumbered, if you——"
"Desire to live in Lost Man's Lane," I put in, subduing both my surprise and my disgust at this preposterous proposal, in order to throw all the sarcasm of which I was capable into this single sentence.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "you don't like the neighborhood. Well, we could go elsewhere. I am not set against the city myself——"
Astounded at his presumption, regarding him as a possible criminal, who was endeavoring to beguile me for purposes of his own, I could no longer repress either my indignation or the wrath with which such impromptu addresses naturally inspired me. Cutting him short with a gesture which made him open his small eyes, I exclaimed in continuation of his remark:
"Nor, as I take it, are you set against the comfortable little income somebody has told you I possessed. I see your disinterestedness, Deacon, but I should be sorry to profit by it. Why, man, I never spoke to you before in my life, and do you think——"
"Oh!" he suavely insinuated, with a suppressed chuckle which even his increasing uneasiness as to William could not altogether repress, "I see you are not above the flattery that pleases other women. Well, madam, I know a tremendous fine woman when I see her, and from the moment I saw you riding by the other day, I made up my mind I would have you for the second Mrs. Spear, if persistence and a proper advocacy of my cause could accomplish it. Madam, I was going to visit you with this proposal to-night, but seeing you here, the temptation was too great for my discretion, and so I have addressed you on the spot. But you need not answer me at once. I don't need to know any more about you than what I can take in with my two eyes, but if you would like a little more acquaintance with me, why I can wait a couple of weeks till we've rubbed the edges off our strangeness, when——"