“Mr. Meyrick!” said he, and turned suddenly respectful.
But presently a view of a rich widow flitted before his eye.
“Well,” said he, “you shan't throw it in my teeth again as I speak too late. I ask you now, and no time lost.”
“What! am I to stop my banns, and jilt Farmer Meyrick for thee?”
“Nay, nay. But I mean I'll marry you, if you'll marry me, as soon as ever the breath is out of that dall'd old hunks's body.”
“Well, well, Will Drake,” said Mary, gravely, “if I do outlive this one—and you bain't married long afore—and if you keeps in the same mind as you be now—and lets me know it in good time—I'll see about it.”
She gave a flounce that made her petticoats whisk like a mare's tail, and off to the kitchen, where she related the dialogue with an appropriate reflection, the company containing several of either sex. “Dilly-Dally and Shilly-Shally, they belongs to us as women be. I hate and despise a man as can't make up his mind in half a minnut.”
So the widow Gosport became Mrs. Meyrick, and lived in a farmhouse not quite a mile from the Hall.
She used often to come to the Hall, and take a peep at her lamb: this was the name she gave Mr. Bassett long after he had ceased to be a child.
About four years after the triumphant return to Huntercombe, Lady Bassett conceived a sudden coldness toward the little boy, though he was universally admired.