“But you don’t see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that,” she said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. “You do know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a tête-à-tête anywhere with anybody.”
“But I am not any body!” exclaimed Dick.
“No, no, I mean with a young man;” and she added softly, “unless I were really engaged to be married to him.”
“Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we’ll be engaged at once, to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!”
“Ah! but suppose I won’t! And, goodness me, what have I done!” she faltered, getting very red. “Positively, it seems as if I meant you to say that!”
“Let’s do it! I mean get engaged,” said Dick. “Now, Fancy, will you be my wife?”
“Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did coming along the road,” she remarked, as if she had not heard the latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her breast, as the word ‘wife’ fell from Dick’s lips, a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each.
“What did I say?”
“About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig.”
“You couldn’t help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you do care for me?”