Alice raised defiant dark eyes: “’Twouldn’t be no such very great harm if we was,” she returned. “He be a likely chap, Adam be; he’ve a-got a few pounds laid by, and if him an’ me was to make a match of it you wouldn’t need to pay en no wage.”
This was a practical aspect of the affair which had not hitherto struck Mrs. Cluett; her countenance relaxed.
“But he haven’t axed I yet,” said Alice discreetly.
Mrs. Cluett drew a long breath.
“Well I haven’t got no objections to your walking out wi’ he on Sunday, my dear,” she remarked condescendingly; and Alice dropped her apron and went away smiling.
Sunday came, and the pair duly set forth, Mrs. Cluett watching their departure from the kitchen window, not without some elation, for indeed her maid was, as she said to herself, a fine piece, and Adam, as he strode along by her side, was “so well set-up as a granadier”.
Alice chattered away gaily while they walked, tucking up her pretty blue skirt to show her starched white petticoat, while her curly head, under its rose-crowned hat, turned this way and that as they passed friends and neighbours. Other heads turned to gaze after her, and many jests and laughs were exchanged, and not a few sly innuendos as to the possible outcome of events. Alice would laugh and blush then, and glance surreptitiously at Adam; but the ex-warrener was more taciturn even than usual that day, and though his face wore a contented expression, he appeared to take little heed of his surroundings.
Presently the girl became silent, and by-and-by distinctly cross; she lagged a little behind Adam; once or twice she stumbled, and once paused, having tripped over a stone.
“What be to do?” inquired Adam, bringing down his eyes all at once from the horizon, where the irregular parti-coloured lines of Oakleigh Wood had hitherto held his gaze.
“You do walk so fast,” complained Alice, “and the road be so rough—and—” in a still more aggrieved tone—“all the other boys and maids what we do meet be a-walkin’ arm-in-crook.”