‘To say what?’ cried the young man, dropping his hands and whisking round in his chair.
Isaac gazed at him mildly, and continued to polish his corduroys.
‘To say No,’ he repeated, slightly uplifting his voice, and speaking very slowly and distinctly. ‘I say I could n’t find it i’ my ’eart to—say—No—when she axed me!’
‘She asked you! Do you mean to say that the proposal came from her?’
‘’T war n’t very likely it ’ud ha’ come fro’ me,’ he remarked dispassionately. ‘As I told her at the time, I never was a marryin’ man.’
A silence ensued, during which Richard vainly endeavoured to readjust his ideas. At length he said faintly:
‘And what did she say to that?’
‘She said,’ returned Farmer Sharpe stolidly, ‘that it would n’t be a bad thing for me—“’t is a fine farm,” says she, “and a good business. You could easy work the two farms together,” says she.’
Richard gazed at his uncle with starting eyes and a dropping jaw.