"I'm not the one to ask! you'll find Mr. Wheeler in the pantry," said Rose, a little sharply.
"What's put you out to-night, I wonder?" said Dixon, coming a little further into the room and closing the door behind him. "Had some quarrel with that peppery lad Burney, I expect? Anyway you've been crying about something; and ten to one it's Burney. I saw him coming away from here, and I had the biggest mind to ask him what business he had to be prowling round a place where he was turned off for unsteadiness."
"You'd best mind what you say about him!" Rose said, stitching away with feverish rapidity. "He wants me to marry him."
"Does he now? Banns put up on Sunday, I suppose?" said Dixon, with a palpable sneer.
"No; we should wait," faltered Rose.
"I should not have thought you were of the waiting sort. Then it's good-bye to me."
"It will be good-bye if I promise; he'll be all or nothing. He's just mad about me."
"Then you've not promised yet?" asked Dixon, eagerly. "You've not been silly enough to do that, Rose?"
"He won't wait; I'm to tell him on Sunday night. And oh! I'm miserable: I don't know what to do!" And Rose let her work fall in her lap, and burst into sobbing.
"Don't cry! don't take on! I'll tell you what to do, my dear. Promise to marry me instead of that hot-headed fool, Burney. Settle it all right away, and don't fash your head any more about it. There need be no waiting—I'll go and see the vicar about the banns,—and if so be that we can't get the rooms over the stables to ourselves, I'll ask Mr. Lessing to give us a cottage. There! you see I'm in earnest. It would be grand to hear your name given out in church the next Sunday as ever is, now wouldn't it?" and Dixon pulled away Rose's hands from her face, and smiled down on her.