“‘If all the tale be true what I hear,’ says Maria Robbins, ‘you be a very brave young ’ooman. Be it really true as you be goin’ to ’Merica to marry a man what you’ve never seen?’
“‘Why, of course ’tis true,’ puts in Mrs. Mayne, ‘and a very good job, too. What could anybody do, you know, Miss Robbins?’ she says to Maria. ‘There’s poor Robert Meadway left his family terrible bad off, and such a lot of ’em, too, and none of ’em fit to earn a penny wi’out it’s Tamsine herself.’
“‘Why didn’t she take a place, then?’ says Maria. ‘I’d a deal sooner go to sarvice nor set out on this ’ere wild goose chase. Ye’ll have to work jist so hard,’ she says, turnin’ to Tamsine, ‘and the Lard knows what sort of a place it is you be a-goin’ to, nor what kind of a chap your husband ’ull turn out to be.’
“‘I shouldn’t mind the work,’ says Tamsine; ‘of course I’d be willin’ to work for my husband, whoever he mid be.’
“She had a kind of soft, pleasant voice, and Jim, when he heard it, turned round to look at her. I did turn round, too.
“‘What’s this tale?’ says I. ‘I never heard nothin’ of it,’ I says.
“‘Ah,’ says Mrs. Mayne, ‘Meadways did keep it dark, d’ye see, till all was settled; but ’tis quite true as Tamsine here be a-goin’ out to America to get wed to a man what lives out there. A very good match it do seem to be, too. A large farm, I d’ ’low, and a comfortable house. And Tamsine’s intended do write beautiful letters, Mrs. Meadway telled I.’
“Tamsine says nothin’, but keeps on pickin’ up the little bits o’ rice what her cousins had throwed at her, an’ droppin’ of ’em out o’ the cart. She was a very handsome maid, wi’ black eyes an’ hair, an’ a pretty bit o’ colour as a general thing, but her face was so white as chalk that day.
“‘Well,’ says Maria, speakin’ a bit sour, as wold maids will when there’s talk of young ones gettin’ wed. ‘I don’t think it’s at all proper nor becoming to go answer they advertisements what comes in the papers, an’ for such a thing as wedlock—Lard ha’ mercy me,’ she says, ‘however had ye the face to do it, Tamsine?’
“‘’Twas my cousin Martha what did it,’ says poor Tamsine, hangin’ down her head. ‘’Twas in the Western Gazette—a very respectable paper, my uncle says. We was lookin’ out for a place for me, and Martha she saw the advertisement. It said the gentleman wanted a wife from Dorset. Martha said it did seem like a chance for I, an’ she took and wrote straight off, more for a bit of fun than anything else, but when the answer came it was wrote quite in earnest. It said the gentleman had knowed some girl what came from Dorset, an’ he ’lowed he’d like a Dorset wife. He gave two references, one to a bank what said, when my uncle wrote, he was very respectable and well off, and one to a minister as said he was a very good man and ’ud make any ’ooman happy. We be chapel-folk, too, and Uncle Meadway said the offer did seem the very thing for I.’