"Mary dear, do you like me a bit?" said John.
The girl still hesitated; then she spoke, almost impatiently: "Of course I do, John."
Some grey pigeons, the Vicar's pigeons, fluttered down from the church tower; the children left their daisy-chains to watch them, clapping their hands as the wings flapped across the churchyard. The minutes passed on, the shadows grew longer. Those two by the stile told each other—John rather to his own surprise, but he felt it was true—that there never had been a time in their lives, from childhood till now, when they had not cared more for each other than for anybody else in the world. And the evening light brightened—the church, with its flint walls, might have been built of gold—the grass lay dazzling green beyond the shadows that stretched across the graves. But it was not all joy. Perfect happiness was still a thing that must be waited for, that shone in the distance.
"It ain't fair, after all," John said sadly. "I didn't ought to have spoke to you like this, 'cause it'll be a long while yet afore I can think of getting married, you know."
"That don't matter: we must wait," said Mary. And indeed it was quite enough for her to know that she had John's love.
The doubt of that, the fear of the future, had weighed on her mind for many a day; now she felt that she could bear anything. Now that they understood each other, nothing else in the world mattered much.
"I must save enough to keep my mother," John went on. "And now there's the child, too; we can't bring her up to work, you know—a child like her. Tell you what, when the time comes, we'll leave mother and her in the old house, and we'll take one of Pratt's cottages for you and me—shan't we, Mary? And my word, I'll work hard; but I shan't get enough in a year, nor in two years. Suppose now it was five, or seven. How long will you wait for me; tell us now?"
"Five, seven, fourteen, twenty-one," said Mary slowly, smiling all the time. "Well, I don't know where to fix it. All my life, I suppose."
"God bless you, dear," said John.
And now the children were tired of their play, and they came lingering across to the corner where Mary was waiting for them. It was strange, and perhaps they felt this by instinct, that she should have waited so long and so patiently. When they were not very far off, Lily, who was dancing along as usual, singing a little song to herself, suddenly looked up and saw John by Mary's side, leaning over the stile. She gave a scream of joy, and came flying towards him. In a moment she was in his arms, perched on his shoulder. Mary went to meet the others, and caught up the youngest and fattest of her tribe, a sturdy boy of three. Then this company started off along the village, the two elders very quiet and very happy, the children singing and shouting round them.