‘The best! Far are you from knowing what that is!’ said the little woman. ‘There be ornaments such as you never dream of; work-tables that would set you in amaze; silver candlesticks, tea and coffee pots that would dazzle your eyes; tea-cups, and saucers, gilded all over with guinea-gold; heavy velvet curtains, gold clocks, pictures, and looking-glasses beyond your very dreams. So don’t say I shall have the best.’
‘H’m!’ said Jim gloomily; and fell into reflection. ‘Where did you get those high notions from, Margery?’ he presently inquired. ‘I’ll swear you hadn’t got ’em a week ago.’ She did not answer, and he added, ‘Yew don’t expect to have such things, I hope; deserve them as you may?’
‘I was not exactly speaking of what I wanted,’ she said severely. ‘I said, things a woman could want. And since you wish to know what I can want to quite satisfy me, I assure you I can want those!’
‘You are a pink-and-white conundrum, Margery,’ he said; ‘and I give you up for to-night. Anybody would think the devil had showed you all the kingdoms of the world since I saw you last!’
She reddened. ‘Perhaps he has!’ she murmured; then arose, he following her; and they soon reached Margery’s home, approaching it from the lower or meadow side—the opposite to that of the garden top, where she had met the Baron.
‘You’ll come in, won’t you, Jim?’ she said, with more ceremony than heartiness.
‘No—I think not to-night,’ he answered. ‘I’ll consider what you’ve said.’
‘You are very good, Jim,’ she returned lightly. ‘Good-bye.’
CHAPTER VII.
Jim thoughtfully retraced his steps. He was a village character, and he had a villager’s simplicity: that is, the simplicity which comes from the lack of a complicated experience. But simple by nature he certainly was not. Among the rank and file of rustics he was quite a Talleyrand, or rather had been one, till he lost a good deal of his self-command by falling in love.