"I knew it, sir," said Mary Ann firmly. "It came to me when I was crying. I was thinking all sorts of things—of my mother and our Sally, and the old pig that used to get so savage, and about the way the organ used to play in church, and then all at once somehow I knew it would be best for me to do what you told me—to buy my dress and go back with the vicar, and be a good girl, and not bother you, because you were so good to me, and it was wrong for me to worry you and make you miserable."
"Tw-oo! Tw-oo!" It was the canary starting on a preliminary carol.
"So I thought it best," she concluded tremulously, "not to see you again. It would only be two days, and after that it would be easier. I could always be thinking of you just the same, Mr. Lancelot, always. That wouldn't annoy you, sir, would it? Because you know, sir, you wouldn't know it."
Lancelot was struggling to find a voice. "But didn't you forget something you had to do, Mary Ann?" he said in hoarse accents.
She raised her eyes swiftly a moment, then lowered them again.
"I don't know; I didn't mean to," she said apologetically.
"Didn't you forget that I told you to come to me and get my answer to your question?"
"No, sir, I didn't forget. That was what I was thinking of all night."
"About your asking me to marry you?"
"Yessir."