‘Not till you give me up, Humfrey,’ she said, as she eagerly laid her neatly gloved fingers in the grasp of the great, broad, horny palm, ‘or at least till you take your gun.’
‘So you are not grown wiser?’
‘Nor ever will be.’
‘Every woman ought to learn to saddle a horse and fire off a gun.’
‘Yes, against the civil war squires are always expecting. You shall teach me when the time comes.’
‘You’ll never see that time, nor any other, if you go out in those thin boots. I’ll fetch Sarah’s clogs; I suppose you have not a reasonable pair in the world.’
‘My boots are quite thick, thank you.’
‘Brown paper!’ And indeed they were a contrast to his mighty nailed soles, and long, untanned buskins, nor did they greatly resemble the heavy, country-made galoshes which, with an elder brother’s authority, he forced her to put on, observing that nothing so completely evinced the Londoner as her obstinacy in never having a pair of shoes that could keep anything out.
‘And where are you going?’
‘To Hayward’s farm. Is that too far for you? He wants an abatement of his rent for some improvements, and I want to judge what they may be worth.’