“Oh, I see, lass—I understand; and maybe your parents object to him as a suitor for your hand.”
“Yes they do, but—” here she hesitated again.
“You love the chap—is that it?”
“I do.” She tried to blush, and partially succeeded.
Her companion tapped her playfully on the elbow.
“Well, well,” she ejaculated “I don’t blame ee. Ha’ done the same thing myself years agone. I don’t know as ye are to be blamed—we none of us can help our likes and dislikes, and we all like to choose for ourselves in cases of this sort—it is but natural. And did he keep his appointment—did ee see him?”
“Yes; Alf—he is obliged to go abroad, and wrote to me to beg me that I would meet him and wish him farewell before he took his departure.”
“Umph, thee beest a brave girl to coom all this distance by yerself. And I be glad ee saw him.”
It is, perhaps, needless to observe that the whole of this story was invented on the spot by the acute and mendacious Laura Stanbridge. It was the first that occurred to her, and, as the old adage has it, “any excuse is better than none.”
The old lady snapped at the bait, and believed every word the other had spoken.