“We’ve been engaged long enough. It’s time we were married.”
“But we’re not old enough,” said Deborah. This was too quick work altogether for one who always let things glide.
“Yes, we are. Besides, if I’m married to you now I shall feel bound in honour to stick to you. Otherwise, when I go away I may forget you.”
It seemed a very terrible thing to be forgotten, so she consented.
“But how are we to do it?” she asked.
“Oh! we stand together with the sky above us, and you must say to me, ‘Bernard’ (not Bay, that’s only short, you know) ‘Bernard, I take you to be my wedded husband’—and then I shall say to you, ‘Deborah, I take you to be my wedded wife.’ After that it’s all done and nothing but death can part us.”
So they went together to the old rustic, ear-wiggy seat in the garden, and were married very solemnly. And he got his place among the chickens in her heart, and what place she got in his it would be hard to tell, as it was a very matter-of-fact union.
Some days later he came with a more serious and thoughtful air.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” he said, sitting down upon the floor and clasping his hands round his knees. “When I go home I’m going to school. Then when I’m old enough I shall be going to Oxford. And after that I’m going to India to shoot big game. Then when I’ve made a name I’ll come home and marry you proper—on the very day you’re twenty-one.”
Now there was something very exciting about all that, which awoke even phlegmatic Deborah, the more so as she was too ignorant to understand the half of it. Even the grey cat got up to stretch itself, but after blinking idly at the speaker it settled comfortably once more in Deborah’s lap.