‘Really, George, you’re too absurd. Cannot a girl stop to speak to a man in the road without being accused of wanting to marry him? You will say I want to marry every clodhopper I may dance with at the harvest-home to-night next.’
‘That is a very different thing. The ploughboys are altogether beneath you, but this Darley is a kind of half-and-half fellow that might presume to imagine himself good enough to be a match for you.’
‘Half-and-half indeed!’ exclaimed Rosa, nettled at the reflection on her lover; ‘and pray, what are we when all’s said and done? Mr Darley’s connections are as good as our own, and better, any day.’
‘Halloa! what are you making a row about? I’ll tell you what, Rosa. It strikes me very forcibly you want to “carry on” with Lord Worcester’s keeper, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it. You—who have been educated and brought up in every respect like a lady—to condescend to flirt with an upstart like that, a mere servant! Why, he’s no better than Isaac Barnes, or old Whisker, or any of the rest of them, only he’s prig enough to oil his hair, and wear a button-hole, in order to catch the eye of such silly noodles like yourself.’
‘You’ve no right to speak to me in this way, George. You know nothing at all about the matter.’
‘I know that I found Darley and you in the lane with your heads very close together, and that directly he caught sight of me he made off. That doesn’t look as if his intentions were honourable, does it? Now, look you here, Rosa. Is he coming to the barn to-night?’
‘I believe so!’
‘And who asked him?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, evasively; ‘papa, perhaps—or very likely Mr Darley thought he required no invitation to join a ploughman’s dance and supper.’
‘Well, you’re not to dance with him if he does come.’