“Ay, but they don't belong to me,—there 's the difference,” said Tony, laughing; then added, in a more thoughtful tone, “I never suspected that Dolly spoke of me.”
“That she did, and very often too. Indeed, I may say that she talked of very little else. It was Tony this and Tony that; and Tony went here and Tony went there; till one day Sam could bear it no longer—for you see Sam was mad in love with her, and said over and over again that he never met her equal. Sam says to me, 'Bob,' says he, 'I can't bear it any more.' 'What is it,' says I, 'that you can't bear?'—for I thought it was something about the drawback duty on mixed rags he was meaning. But no, sirs; it was that he was wild wi' jealousy, and couldn't bear her to be a-talkin' about you. 'I think,' says he, 'if I could meet that same Tony, I 'd crack his neck for him.'”
“That was civil, certainly!” said Tony, dryly.
“'And as I can't do that, I 'll just go and ask her what she means by it all, and if Tony's her sweetheart?'”
“He did not do that!” Tony cried, half angrily.
“Yes, but he did, though; and what for no? You would n't have a man lose his time pricing a bale of goods when another had bought them? If she was in treaty with you, Mr. Butler, where was the use of Sam spending the day trying to catch a word wi' her? So, to settle the matter at once, he overtook her one morning going to early meeting with the children, and he had it out.”
“Well, well?” asked Tony, eagerly.
“Well, she told him there never was anything like love between herself and you; that you were aye like brother and sister; that you knew each other from the time you could speak; that of all the wide world she did not know any one so well as you; and then she began to cry, and cried so bitterly that she had to turn back home again, and go to her room as if she was taken ill; and that's the way Mrs. M'Gruder came to know what Sam was intending. She never suspected it before; but, hech sirs! if she did n't open a broadside on every one of us! And the upshot was, Dolly was packed off home to her father; Sam went back to Leghorn; and there's Sally and Maggie going back in everything ever they learned; for it ain't every day you pick up a lass like that for eighteen pounds a year, and her washing.”
“But did he ask her to marry him?” cried Tony.
“He did. He wrote a letter—a very good and sensible letter too—to her father. He told him that he was only a junior, with a small share, but that he had saved enough to furnish a house, and that he hoped, with industry and care and thrifty ways, he would be able to maintain a wife decently and well; and he referred to Dr. Forbes of Auchterlonie for a character of him; and I backed it myself, saying, in the name of the house, it was true and correct.”