There was a short cut across the paddocks to a point of the road where he would pass; and with these thoughts flashing through my mind, hatless and with flying hair, I ran as fast as I could, scrambling up on the fence in a breathless state just as he had passed.
“Hal, Hal!” I called. “Come back, come back! I want you.”
He turned his horse slowly.
“Well, Syb, what is it?”
“Oh, Hal, dear Hal! I was thinking too much to say anything; but you surely don’t think I’d be so mean as to care a pin whether you are rich or poor—only for your own sake? If you really want me, I will marry you when I am twenty-one if you are as poor as a crow.”
“It is too good to be true. I thought you didn’t care for me. Sybylla, what do you mean?”
“Just what I say,” I replied, and without further explanation, jumping off the fence I ran back as fast as I had come.
When half-way home I stopped, turned, looked, and saw Harold cantering smartly homewards, and heard him whistling a merry tune as he went.
After all, men are very weak and simple in some ways.
I laughed long and sardonically, apostrophizing myself thus: