She thanked him and guessed he had intended to present it on the following day, when it was probable they would have met at Shipley Bridge—she with her puppies, he with a cart of rabbits on his way to Brent. But before Huntingdon Warren House was lost on their homeward way, Jacob asked her to drop the flower.
"I don't like that sort of nonsense," he said. "The young man made a hole in his manners offering it, in my opinion. I'll forgive him this time, because he used to be a sailor and they don't know better."
Margery instantly flung away the blossoms.
"A mannerless oaf," added Jacob, "else he'd have known wiser than to stare at you as though you were a show. I'll ask you not to take note of him if you meet him again without me."
Margery wondered and her heart beat a little quicker.
"Isn't he a good sort of man?" she asked.
"For all I know; but the woman that's going to marry me needn't trouble whether any other man's good or not."
"That's true," she said, smiling to herself. "I never thought about how good you were when I began to love you—only how wonderful and precious. Love don't take much account of goodness or badness I reckon."
"Very often not, till too late."
"Then it's a bit of added fortune to fall in love with a right good man," she said.