Walter felt that he must know just how the young man was proceeding with Betty in the bower. He soon found an excuse to separate himself from his companions; and then he heard all sorts of things that did not make him much wiser.
“Yes, I said so too. In May——”
“Certainly, on account of the top story——”
“It’s annoying! And what does your mother say?”
“Hm—she says we must wait another year, that it isn’t respectable to get married in such a hurry—it’s just as if——”
“Yes, four years. Louw and Anna have been engaged for seven.”
Walter was proud that he knew exactly what it all meant. To rent an upper story together, preferably in May!—that was the way he understood it.
“And do you get that press for the linen?”
“No, mother wants to keep it. But if we will only wait a year she will give us another one—a small one.”