“I say, Willie, I believe those two are spoons.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Will.
“He’s holding her hands, and going on, anyhow. Blessed good thing it would be if they are, as then May would marry the young squire, and we would get no end of tips, and get out of the way sometimes for a bit of that awful woman at home.”
“She’s disgusting,” answered Will, emphatically.
“Beastly,” said the younger brother, equally emphatically; and then the two boys re-crossed the stile, and May and John Temple seeing this, advanced to meet them.
“Have you got lots of blackberries?” asked John.
“Barely ripe,” replied Hal, amiably, to his proposed brother-in-law. “Have a few?”
He opened his stained cotton pocket handkerchief as he spoke, and offered the luxuries it contained to John, who, however, shook his head.
“I am too old to eat blackberries,” he said, with a smile; “I wish I were not.”
“Not do you any harm,” hospitably pressed Hal; “here’s a good ’un.”