She shook her head, but didn't speak.
"Come now, lass, you needn't be so shy. I know he's asked you to wed him; he asked for my permission like a man, and then he told me he was going to speak to you to-night. You can't do better, my dear. Have you fixed it all up?"
"No," she said.
"What!" cried the father, "you don't mean to say you have been such a fool as to say no!"
"I have said nothing as yet," was her answer.
George Lister heaved a sigh of relief. "Ay, well," he said, "it's perhaps a good thing not to say yes at once. Hold him back two or three days and it will make him all the more eager. When a man comes to me to buy cloth I never shows as 'ow I am eager to sell. But of course you will take him?"
"I don't know," replied Alice.
"Don't know! Why don't you know? You like him, don't you?"
"I don't know, father," she replied, and then she rushed out of the room.
"What's the meaning of this, lass?" said George Lister to his wife.
"Has she told you anything?"