“You can inquire at my aunt’s—she will tell you.”
“My name is Gabriel Oak.”
“And mine isn’t. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively, Gabriel Oak.”
“You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it.”
“I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable.”
“I should think you might soon get a new one.”
“Mercy!—how many opinions you keep about you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak.”
“Well, Miss—excuse the words—I thought you would like them. But I can’t match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me your hand.”
She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak’s old-fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. “Very well,” she said, and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demure impassivity. He held it but an instant, and in his fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted person.
“I am sorry,” he said the instant after.