"WILL YOU TAKE THIS MAN?"
The kindly cup of tea of which Mrs. Colley had spoken to Abram Lestwick must have grown cold or been replaced and renewed many times, but it was not partaken of by him for whom it was so hospitably intended.
Mrs. Colley, a short, little body, with a long, lean, bony face and black hair, dragged back painfully from a protruding and shiny forehead, watched for Abram as eagerly as ever a maid watched for the coming of her lover.
'Lizabeth, sallow faced, black haired like her grandmother, and with the bad teeth possessed by too many country girls, tossed her head.
"I don't go running after no man!" she said. "Abram Lestwick least of all! I say if he doan't want our tea, let him stop away!"
"You fool!" said her grandmother, "and there be that Mrs. Hanson forever dangling after he. Would you be beat, 'Lizabeth, by a pink and white dolly faced hussy like Mrs. Hanson's Betty? I'd have more pride, I would!"
"She be welcome to he!" said 'Lizabeth. "Too quiet and mum mouthed he be to my liking and——"
"There he be!" said Mrs. Colley.
She bounded out of her chair and was across the little sitting room kitchen and down the garden path to the gate all in a moment; a very energetic woman, Mrs. Colley!
"Oh, Abram!" she said a little breathlessly. "Funny me coming out this moment and meeting 'ee promiscus like, but I did see a great slug a-settling on my geraniums and just at this very moment 'Lizabeth be laying the tea and a fresh biscuit she hev baked, all hot from the oven, so du 'ee come in now, Abram, for there be a powerful lot of things I want to speak wi' 'ee about!"