"Ah!" said Mrs. Hanson.
"What hev your visits to do wi' me?" Betty demanded, a spot of vivid colour in her white cheeks.
"I du love 'ee and want 'ee to marry me!" he said simply.
"That be well spoken, straight and to the point, that be!" said Mrs. Hanson. "No man could speak fairer!"
"Then I will speak straight and to the point tu," Betty said. "I du not love 'ee and will never marry 'ee! I would sooner be dead, and drownd myself I will before I marry 'ee, Abram Lestwick!"
"Ah!" he said, his eyes roved towards Mrs. Hanson. What had she to say to that?
"A perilous bad maid 'ee be!" said Mrs. Hanson.
"So 'ee've told me till I be sick to death o' hearing it. Perilous bad and wicked and ungrateful, I be—an all that's bad! Why do he come here a persecutering me? Why doan't he leave I alone?" the girl cried passionately. "I doan't ask him to—to foller me and worry me—why doan't he go and marry 'Lizbeth Colley, wi' her currant biscuits? A wonderful fashioner and manager she be! He said it, said it and I—I wun't marry him. I'll die—die willing and glad, yes die! Yes, I'll die!"
She leaped to her feet, her face was burning, her eyes brilliant with defiance and anger.
"No one hasn't the right to so persecute a maid like he du persecute I! I doan't want him here. I—I can't bear nor bide 'ee, Abram Lestwick, I can't!"