“But you laughed when I laughed.”
“Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!”
“Really, you don’t know? Goodness—not knowing that!”
“I’ll take my oath I don’t!”
“O yes,” said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, “we’re engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her.”
“Of course, of course! I didn’t know that, and I hope ye’ll excuse any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all then fell a-talking o’ family matters; but neither one o’ them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your father’s own wedding. ’Tisn’t what I should have expected from an old neighbour!”
“Well, to say the truth, we hadn’t told father of the engagement at that time; in fact, ’twasn’t settled.”
“Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday’s the courting day. Heu-heu!”
“No, ’twasn’t done Sunday in particular.”
“After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper good time.”