"Little Jennie," he said after a moment, "how would you like to live here always, and never have any work to do—nothing to do but adorn your beauty with silks and laces, and jewels, and ride and walk and amuse yourself!"
She clasped her toil-worn little hands, and looked at him with beaming eyes, and a happy smile on her red lips.
"Oh, I should like it above anything!" she breathed, gladly.
He took her hand in his, then dropped it with a slight frown. It was hardened and enlarged by honest toil, and not pretty like her face. He was used to velvet hands, white as the lily, for he seldom descended to women in her station of life. She did not see the slight curl of his lip, for he turned his head away, and when he looked back he was smiling, and there was a beam of tenderness in his eyes.
"Jennie, dearest," he said, "you can have all that, and what is better, you can have one fond, devoted heart to adore you if you will only speak the word."
She looked up blushing and smiling.
"You mean," she said, and then paused.
"I mean," he answered, "that I will lavish every luxury and pleasure upon you if you will only accept my love."
The simple, untutored country girl did not for a moment comprehend his meaning. She turned to him with clasped hands and a face full of joyful emotion.
"Oh, sir," she said, fervently, "you know that I shall only be too happy and thankful to be your wife!"