Volume One—Chapter Sixteen.
Brother William at Home.
Brother William went very regularly to the Scarletts, and took Fanny’s magazines, handing them to her always with an air of disgust, which resulted in their being snatched angrily away. Then he would sit down, and in due time partake of tea, dwelling over it, as it were, in a very bovine manner—the resemblance being the stronger whenever there was watercress or lettuce upon the table. In fact, there was something remarkably ruminative in Brother William’s slow, deliberate, contemplative way; while, to carry on the simile, there was a something almost in keeping in the manners of Martha Betts—a something that while you looked at the well-nurtured, smooth, pleasant, quiet woman, set the observer thinking of Lady Scarlett’s gentle Jersey cows, that came up, dewy lipped and sweet breathed, to blink and have their necks patted and ears pulled by those they knew.
Injustice to Martha Betts, it must be said that she never allowed her neck to be patted nor her ears pulled by Brother William; and what was more, that stout yeoman farmer would never for a moment have thought of presuming to behave so to the lady of his choice; for that she was the lady of his choice he one day showed. It was a pleasant afternoon, and Brother William had been greatly enjoying a delicious full-hearted lettuce that John Monnick had brought in expressly for the servants’ tea. Perhaps it was the lettuce which inspired the proposal that was made during the temporary absence of Fanny from the tea-table.
“Pretty girl, Fanny; ain’t she, Martha?”
“Very; but I would not tell her so. She knows it quite enough.”
“She do,” said Brother William; “and it’s a pity; but I’m used to it. She always was like that, from quite a little un; and it frets me a bit when I get thinking about her taking up with any one. You don’t know of any one, do you?”
“Not that she’s taken with,” said Martha, in the quietest way. “There’s the ironmonger’s young man, and Colonel Sturt’s Scotch gardener; but Fanny won’t notice them.”