"Never!"
"Thank God for that!" says the girl, with some bitterness; "for that's a chalk in my favour, at least. Now look here! I know you, James Prescott; and I know that you're too good a man--too well brought up and fond of home and that sort of thing--to hint any thing but what's right towards me."
"Kitty!"
"There--I know it. Don't break a blood-vessel with your emotion," she added, gently tapping him on the shoulder with her riding-whip. "All right. Well, suppose we were married, you'd feel very jolly, wouldn't you, while you were down at your office doing your sums and things, which you got so riled when I spoke of just now, to think that Tom Orme, and Claverhouse, and De Bonnet, and a whole lot of fellows, were mooning about this place with me?"
"I'd wring all their necks!" says honest Jim Prescott, looking excessively wobegone.
"Exactly. But you see, if you wrung their necks, they would not send their wives and sisters and daughters to be taught riding at The Den; they would not commission me to look out for ladies' hacks, to break them, and bring them into order; and my trade would be gone. And we couldn't live on the twopence-halfpenny a-year you get from your office, Jim, old fellow."
"I know that, Kitty," said poor Prescott; "I know all that; but--"
"Hold on half a second!" interrupted Kate; "let us look the thing straight in the face, and have it out, Jim, now and for ever. I know you--know you're a thoroughgoing good fellow, straight as an arrow, and know that if you married me, you'd stick to me till you dropped. But you'd have a hard time, Jim--an awful hard time!"
"I should not mind that, Kitty. I'd work for you--"
"Oh, it isn't in that way I mean. But how would you stand having to break off with your own people for your wife's sake? How could you take me down to your governor's parsonage, and introduce me there? How would my manners and my talk please your mother and sisters? It's madness, Jim,--it's worse than madness,--to talk of such a scheme. Shake hands, and let's be always good friends--the best of friends. If you ever want a good turn that I can do, you know where I'm to be found. God bless you, old boy; but never mention this subject again!"