"Well?"
"Didn't he speak to 'ee, tell 'ee his mind?"
"Yes, he did and—and I hate him!"
"Hate?" said Mrs. Hanson. "Still filled wi' hate, 'ee be, which bain't seemly in a young maid! What wi' your hating first this one and then t'other, fair fed up I be wi' your hates, my maid, and 'tis time to put a stop to all such nonsense! Abram Lestwick hev been wi' me to-night and talking wi' me he hev been, and about you—moreover. And he be willing to marry 'ee and a good match it'll be, my maid, which Mrs. Colley have been angling for for that putty-faced 'Lizbeth o' hers, though Abram would never look twice at she. But 'tis you he be after, an upright, godly young man with thirty-five shillings a week and a cottage and all, and a rare chance for the likes of 'ee, Betty Hanson, wi'out a shillin' to your name!"
"I hate him and I'll never, never marry him; I hate him and am afeared of him as well! And sooner than marry he I'd go and drownd myself in the river, aye, that, I would, and that I will, for marry him I never will!"
"That's what 'ee say, but hark to me, marry him I say 'ee shall and I have told him, he has my wishes!"
A defiant white face, with big glittering eyes faced the wrinkled, angry old face.
"Drownd myself I will gladly and willingly afore I marry he!"
"Go 'ee in!" said Mrs. Hanson. "A perilous bad maid 'ee be and 'shamed of 'ee I be, and asking myself I be all the time—Be this my son Garge's child, or be she a changeling? For such temper no Hanson ever did hev yet—Go 'ee in, but mark this, marry him 'ee shall!"
"Mark this!" Betty cried. "Marry him I never will! I'll drownd myself first! Aye and blithely and gaily—for I du hate and fear him more than any mortal man and they fingers o' his that touched me—ugh! That touched me and—" And then suddenly she broke down in a passion of sobs and ran into the house.