“I don’t want to be grand,” said the Goose Girl, with whom tears were still very imminent.
“I have a great idea,” said Jim. “Get old man Cheriton to buy the Red House at Widdiford, and then ask me and my old lady to come and stay with you for a fortnight. We will give them such a roasting at the Parsonage—especially that girl Polly—as they have not had lately.”
Somehow this scheme of Jim’s seemed to infuse a ray of hope in the forlorn heart of the Goose Girl.
“Jim,” said she in a thrilling voice, “perhaps Lord Cheriton might buy the Red House for you and Muffin.”
“Or perhaps pigs might fly,” said Jim.
“You will marry Muffin, won’t you? P-r-romise me, Jim, that you will.”
“What is the good, you Goose, of my p-r-romising to marry the Ragamuffin? How do you suppose a poor painting chap, who lives with his old mother at Balham, can marry into a family with a real live countess in it? What do you suppose that girl Polly would have to say upon the subject?”
This great idea, however, had insinuated itself into the Goose Girl’s slow-moving and tenacious mind, and of course it stuck there.
“Jim,” said she, just as the signal fell for the train from Talyfaln, and the solemn conviction of her tone was such that Jim hardly knew whether to laugh or to shed tears, yet hardly liking in public to adopt the latter course, decided in favor of the former; “Jim,” said she, “I am sure Muffin would love to marry you. And she is such a sweet. I shall write to dearest papa about it.”
Before Jim could make a fitting reply the train from Talyfaln came snorting and rattling in with a great display of unnecessary violence. Jim had to look after the luggage, while Lord Cheriton, with his accustomed gallantry, handed Jim’s mother, her red umbrella, and her French novel into a third-class compartment. Muffin personally supervised the installation of Polly’s dress-basket into the luggage van, and gave the porter twopence out of her chain purse.