"I never see a single duck the whole time I stopped there. If ducks was there, we didn't see 'em."
"And what about the white donkeys, Grind?" added Peckaby. "Be they in plenty?"
Grind was ignorant of the white donkey story, and took the question literally. "I never see none," he repeated. "There's nothing white there but the great Salt Lake, which strikes the eyes with blindness—"
"Won't I treat you to a basting!"
The emphatic remark, coming from Mrs. Duff, caused a divertisement, especially agreeable to Susan Peckaby. The unhappy Dan, by some unexplainable cause, had torn the sleeve of his new jacket to ribbons. He sheltered himself from wrath behind Chuff the blacksmith, and the company began to pour in a stream towards the tables.
The sun had sunk in the west when Verner's Pride was left in quiet; the gratified feasters, Master Cheese included, having wended their way home. Lionel was with his wife at the window of her dressing-room, where he had formerly stood with Sibylla. The rosy hue of the sky played upon Lucy's face. Lionel watched it as he stood with his arm round her. Lifting her eyes suddenly, she saw how grave his looked, as they were bent upon her.
"What are you thinking of, Lionel?"
"Of you, my darling. Standing with you here in our own home, feeling that you are mine at last; that nothing, save the hand of Death, can part us, I can scarcely yet believe in my great happiness."
Lucy raised her hand, and drew his face down to hers. "I can," she whispered. "It is very real."
"Ay, yes! it is real," he said, his tone one of almost painful intensity. "God be thanked! But we waited. Lucy, how we waited for it!"