Possibly Anne was thrilled pleasantly enough at having brought the truant village lad to her feet again; but he was not to find the situation so easy as he imagined, and her hand was not to be taken yet.
‘Very pretty!’ she said, laughing. ‘And only six weeks since Miss Johnson left.’
‘Zounds, don’t say anything about that!’ implored Bob. ‘I swear that I never—never deliberately loved her—for a long time together, that is; it was a sudden sort of thing, you know. But towards you—I have more or less honoured and respectfully loved you, off and on, all my life. There, that’s true.’
Anne retorted quickly—
‘I am willing, off and on, to believe you, Captain Robert. But I don’t see any good in your making these solemn declarations.’
‘Give me leave to explain, dear Miss Garland. It is to get you to be pleased to renew an old promise—made years ago—that you’ll think o’ me.’
‘Not a word of any promise will I repeat.’
‘Well, well, I won’t urge ’ee to-day. Only let me beg of you to get over the quite wrong notion you have of me; and it shall be my whole endeavour to fetch your gracious favour.’
Anne turned away from him and entered the house, whither in the course of a quarter of an hour he followed her, knocking at her door, and asking to be let in. She said she was busy; whereupon he went away, to come back again in a short time and receive the same answer.
‘I have finished painting the summer-house for you,’ he said through the door.