“Hesitated?”
“Oh, Mr. Richard, you want a bright, cheerful companion, not a poor broken-hearted creature like myself. If I could forget the past—if I could be the same as I was a few years ago, the matter would be different. As it is, I know not what to do. Do you persist in pressing the suit?”
“Do I persist? Of course I do,” cried the farmer. “Shall always persist while both of us are alive.”
“Oh! while we are alive?” repeated Jane Ryan.
The farmer looked surprised—not to say a little alarmed.
“Well we are not going to die, as yet let us hope.”
“No; let us hope not.”
“And if you marry me,” he exclaimed, suddenly assuming a tone of confidence and cheerfulness. “You’re so good a girl that you’ll live for my sake.”
His companion smiled, and wound his arms round her neck.
“Now I’ve got ’ee,” he ejaculated, “and you consent to be mine for better or for worse?”