"Them as marry for the eye often find they're mistook, and with your homely looks, my dear, you've always got the certainty no man will snatch at you like he would at a pretty flower. When he comes, your husband will look beneath the surface and there he'll find what's better than pink cheeks and a glad eye. So you wait," I said, "for a chap who's past the silly stage and wants a comfortable home and a good cook and helpmate who'll look at both sides of sixpence before she spends it."
'Twas well meant, but like a lot of other well-intending remarks, fell a good bit short to the hearer. In fact the woman's reply threw a bit of light on character and showed me a side of Minnie's mind I had not bargained for. She flickered up as I spoke and stared out of her faded eyes, and for a passing moment there comed a glint in 'em, like the sun on a dead fish.
"I didn't know I was so plain as all that!" she snapped out. "There's uglier than me in the village, unless I can't see straight, and whether or no, when I marry, it'll be for love, let me tell you, Mary Stocks, and not to count my husband's sixpences!"
"May he have more than you can count, my dear, when he do come," I said, for the soft answer that turns away wrath has mostly been my motto. And then I left her, champing on the bit, so to say; and I wondered where the poor soul had seen a less fanciable maiden than herself in our village, or any other. But 'tis the mercy of Providence to hide reality from us where 'tis like to hurt most, and no doubt if our neighbours knew the naked truth of their queer appearances and uncomfortable natures, there would come a rush of them felo-de-sees and a lot of unhappiness that ignorance escapes.
Well, my poor John went, but before he'd done so it was plain to mark that our old and valued friend, Gregory Sweet, had me upon his mind. Never a word he said while there was a spark of life in John and never a word he said afterwards either for a full year, and I liked him the better for it; but though cautious, he was not a concealer, and never attempted to hide his regard and hope where I was concerned. A woman knows without words, being gifted by nature to understand signs and signals, whether of danger, or the reverse; and so I knew Gregory was very much addicted to me and only waiting the appointed time to offer. For a long while I thought he would put the proposal in a letter, and then, remembering his caution and his terror of the written word, I guessed he'd never so far commit himself as to set it down. But I was ready and willing, for Greg had a tidy little greengrocer's business and they counted him a snug man. A bachelor of sixty-two he was—clean as a new pin of a Sunday and very well thought upon. A bearded man, with a wrinkled brow and eyes that looked shifty to a stranger; but 'twas only his undying caution made them so. As straight as any other greengrocer, and straighter than some. And I was tolerable poor, but not lacking in gifts to shine, given the chance; and I knew Gregory inside out, you may say, and felt that in the shop and the home, he'd be a happier man for my company.
So, when the year was out and he still kept hanging on, though never a day passed but he looked in, or brought a bunch of pretty fresh green stuff, I felt the man's hand must be strengthened.
"I'll save him from himself in this matter," I thought. "He's got a way of thinking time and eternity be the same thing, and he's looked all round the bargain for more'n a year, so 'tis up to me to help him in the way he very clearly wants to go." And I set about him and made it easy for him to see he wouldn't get "No" for an answer when he brought himself to the brink. I made it so clear as a woman could that I cared for Sweet, and I aired my views and dropped a good few delicate-minded hints, such as that he didn't look to be getting any younger and more didn't I; and when the Rev. Champernowne preached a very fine performance on the words, "Now is the accepted time," I rubbed it in fearlessly when Mr. Sweet next came for a smoke and talk after his supper.
"Time don't stand still with the youngest," I said, "and for my part it seems to go quicker with the middle-aged than anybody; and many a man and woman too," I said, "have lived to look back and see what a lot they missed, through too much caution and doubt. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' is a very true word," I said, "and when a man have only got to open his mouth to win his heart's desire, he's a good bit of a fool, Greg, to keep it shut."
I couldn't say no more than that, and he nodded and answered me that he didn't know but what I might be right.
"There's not your equal for sense in the parish," he told me, and being worked up a bit that evening, I very near gave him an impatient answer; but that ain't my way: I just held in and told him that I was glad he thought so, and I believed he weren't the only one. Then he took a curious look at me and said "Good evening," and went on his way.