"Tell me this now, Winny,—you know we were reared, I may say, at the door with one another, and have been fast friends since we were that height" (and she held her hand within about two feet of the ground, at the same time looking fully and very kindly into her friend's face),— "tell me now, Winny dear, did it fret you to believe what you heard? Come now."
"For your sake, and for his, Kitty, it could not fret me; but for my own sake—there now, don't ask me."
"No, avourneen, I won't; what need have I, Winny, when I see them cheeks of yours,—or is it the sun that cum suddenly out upon you, Winny asthore?"
"Kate Mulvey, I'll tell you the truth, as I believe you have told it to me. For many a long day I'm striving to keep myself from liking that boy on your account. I think, Kate, if I hadn't a penny-piece in the world no more than yourself, I would have done my very best to take him from you; it would have been a fair fight then, Kitty; but I didn't like to use any odds against you, Kitty dear; and I never gave him so much as one word to go upon."
"I'm very thankful to you, Winny dear; an' signs on the boy, he thought you were for a high match with rich Tom Murdock; an' any private chat Emon an' I ever had was about that same thing."
"Then he has spoken to you about me! O Kitty, dear Kitty, what used he to be saying of me? do tell me."
"The never a word I'll tell you, Winny dear. Let him spake to yourself; which maybe he'll do when he finds you give Tom the go-by; but I'm book-sworn; so don't ask me."
"Well, Kitty, I'm glad I happened to come across you this morning; for now we understand each other, and there's no fear of our interrupting one another in our thoughts any more."
"None, thank God," said Kitty.
By this time the girls had wandered along the road to nearly a mile from home. They had both gained their object, though not in the roundabout sounding manner which we had anticipated, and they were now both happy. They were no longer even the imaginary rivals which it appears was all they had ever been; and as this light broke upon them the endearing epithets of "dear" and "jewel" became more frequent and emphatic than was usual in a conversation of the same length.