‘Do you suppose I don’t know that? Perhaps I likes you blind best.’
‘But I am so useless. I get about so slowly. If anything was to happen to aunt, how could I keep the house clean and cook the dinners, Larry? You must think a bit more before you decide for good.’
But the poor child’s face was burning with excitement the while, and her sightless eyes were thrown upwards to her cousin’s face as though she would strain through the darkness to see it.
‘If anything happened to mother, do you suppose I’d turn you out of doors, Liz? And in any case, then, I must have a wife or a servant to do the work—it will make no difference that way. The only question is, do you want me for a husband?’
‘Oh! I have loved you ever so!’ replied the girl, throwing herself into his arms. ‘I couldn’t love another man, Larry. I know your face as well as if I had seen it, and your step, and your voice. I can tell them long before another body knows there’s sound a-coming.’
‘Then you’ll have me?’
‘If you’ll have me,’ she murmured in a tone of delight as she nestled against his rough clothes.
‘That’s settled, then, and the sooner the banns are up the better! Here, mother! Come along and hear the news. Lizzie has promised to marry me, and I shall take her to church as soon as we’ve been cried.’
‘Well! I am pleased,’ said Mrs Barnes. ‘You couldn’t have got a neater wife, Larry, though her eyesight’s terribly against her, poor thing! But I’m sure of one thing, Liz, if you can’t do all for him that another woman might, you’ll love my lad with the best among them, and that thought will make me lie quiet in my grave.’