"Gude kens that.�-I maun jist warstle throu' 't like mony anither. I'll awa' back to the pig-skin saiddle I was workin' at," said Curly, with a smile at the bitterness of his fate.
"It's no that I dinna like ye, Curly. Ye ken that. I wad do anything for ye that I cud do. Ye hae been a gude frien' to me."
And here Annie burst out crying.
"Dinna greit. The Lord preserve's! dinna greit. I winna say anither word aboot it. What's Curly that sic a ane as you sud greit for him? Faith! it's nearhan' as guid as gin ye lo'ed me. I'm as prood's a turkey-cock," averred Curly in a voice ready to break with emotion of a very different sort from pride.
"It's a sair thing that things winna gang richt!" said Annie at last, after many vain attempts to stop the fountain by drying the stream of her tears.�-I believe they were the first words of complaint upon things in general that she ever uttered.
"Is't my wyte, Curly?" she added.
"Deil a bit o' 't!" cried Curly. "And I beg yer pardon for sweirin'.
Your wyte! I was aye a fule. But maybe," he added, brightening a
little, "I micht hae a chance�-some day-�some day far awa', ye ken,
Annie?"
"Na, na, Curly. Dinna think o' 't. There's no chance for ye, dear
Curly."
His face flushed red as a peony.
"That lick-the-dirt 's no gaun to gar ye marry the colliginer?"