“Don't play tricks on me, Patty, and keep shovin' me off so, an' givin' wrong reasons,” pleaded Cephas. “What's the trouble with me? I know mother's temper's onsartain, but we never need go into the main house daytimes and father'd allers stand up ag'in' her if she didn't treat you right. I've got a good trade and father has a hundred dollars o' my savin's that I can draw out to-morrer if you'll have me.”
“I can't, Cephas; don't move; stay where you are; no, don't come any nearer; I'm not fond of you that way, and, besides,—and, besides—”
Her blush and her evident embarrassment gave Cephas a new fear.
“You ain't promised a'ready, be you?” he asked anxiously; “when there ain't a feller anywheres around that's ever stepped foot over your father's doorsill but jest me?”
“I haven't promised anything or anybody,”
Patty answered sedately, gaining her self-control by degrees, “but I won't deny that I'm considering; that's true!”
“Considerin' who?” asked Cephas, turning pale.
“Oh,—SEVERAL, if you must know the truth”; and Patty's tone was cruel in its jauntiness.
“SEVERAL!” The word did not sound like ordinary work-a-day Riverboro English in Cephas's ears. He knew that “several” meant more than one, but he was too stunned to define the term properly in its present strange connection.
“Whoever 't is wouldn't do any better by you'n I would. I'd take a lickin' for you any day,” Cephas exclaimed abjectly, after a long pause.