"What if the maid lose hers with looking at him? He is a well-favored lad."
"Ay, he hath the look and bearing of the Romneys. But what hath put this fancy in thy head?"
"Oh, I have looked and listened and I am very swift to take in such things, swifter than thou, I dare venture; oft would I have spoken to thee of the matter ere this, but feared to stir lest thou take it too hard."
"Good Master Blind-as-a-Bat, once before I called thee by that name, and thou hast got no better eyes since. I have known this wondrous news of thine these twelve months more or less."
"And never told me?"
"Oft would I have spoken," answered Elizabeth, mockingly, "but feared lest thou take it too hard."
"The same old Betty!" cried Humphrey Huntoon, laughing, yet a trifle vexed, for the most amiable of men loves not to be made a jest of. "But there must be some deeper reason why thou shouldst have held thy peace on a matter touching us both so nearly. Faith, thou art like the fish Walton tells of, that closeth its mouth in August and openeth not till spring."
"Why, Humphrey, 'twas the first night of the Nevilles' coming, Romney did make a clean breast of his love for Peggy, and the next day we talked of it again. He told me all,—how he had asked her to marry him and got no answer; that is, none that suited him, for he swore she cared no more for him than for any gallant of St. Mary's save as he had befriended her brother; 'but, Mother,' he said, 'I spoke with her since she came to Romney and told her the matter was not to be opened for a year, that we were both too young, and meanwhile we were to be friends, and if she made any show of not being at ease with me, I would take myself off for the whole year, and that would be a great grief to you and my father.'"
"Ah!" said her husband, "the boy has the blood of the Huntoons in him. 'Twas spoken like a man, and Peggy—what said she?"
"She said nothing, only stretched out both hands and looked up at him in a way she has which would make a man in love with her that was cold before, and make her lover ready to live or die for another like it. Ever since they have been fast friends, though 'tis to thee rather than Romney she shows favor, and 'tis well I am a woman above jealousy."