Sally bent down her head, so choked with the long-delayed joy that she found it impossible to speak. Mark finished the few remaining stalks and put them behind him; he sat upon the ground at her feet.
“There's my hand, Sally; will you take it, and me with it?”
Her hand slowly made its way into his broad, hard palm. Once the surrender expressed, her confusion vanished; she lifted her head for his kiss, then leaned it on his shoulder and whispered,—
“Oh, Mark, I've loved you for ever and ever so long a time!”
“Why, Sally, deary,” said he, “that's my case, too; and I seemed to feel it in my bones that we was to be a pair; only, you know, I had to get a foothold first. I couldn't come to you with empty hands—though, faith! there's not much to speak of in 'em!”
“Never mind that, Mark,—I'm so glad you want me!”
And indeed she was; why should she not, therefore, say so?
“There's no need o' broken sixpences, or true-lovers' knots, I guess,” said Mark, giving her another kiss. “I'm a plain-spoken fellow, and when I say I want you for my wife, Sally, I mean it. But we mustn't be settin' here, with the row unhusked; that'll never do. See if I don't make the ears spin! And I guess you can help me a little now, can't you?”
With a jolly laugh, Mark picked up the corn-cutter and swung it above the next shock. In another instant it would have fallen, but a loud shriek burst out from the bundled stalks, and Joe Fairthorn crept forth on his hands and knees.
The lovers stood petrified. “Why, you young devil!” exclaimed Mark, while the single word “JOE!” which came from Sally's lips, contained the concentrated essence of a thousand slaps.