“Jack, you don’t know what you are talking about!”
“Ah, that’s very likely; but I know quite well what I shall do.”
“What will you do?”
“Marry her myself, if you don’t; so look sharp,” laughed Jack. “By Saint Mungo! I think an immense deal of bonny Nell! A fine young creature like that, who has been brought up in the mine, is just the very wife for a miner. She is an orphan—so am I; and if you don’t care much for her, and if she will have me—”
Harry looked gravely at Jack, and let him talk on without trying to stop him. “Don’t you begin to feel jealous, Harry?” asked Jack in a more serious tone.
“Not at all,” answered Harry quietly.
“But if you don’t marry Nell yourself, you surely can’t expect her to remain a spinster?”
“I expect nothing,” said Harry.
A movement of the ladder machinery now gave the two friends the opportunity—one to go up, the other down the shaft. However, they remained where they were.
“Harry,” quoth Jack, “do you think I spoke in earnest just now about Nell?”