“O no, ’twasn’t done then.”
“Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?”
“Not at all; I wouldn’t think of getting engaged in a dog-cart.”
“Dammy—might as well have said at once, the when be blowed! Anyhow, ’tis a fine day, and I hope next time you’ll come as one.”
Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, and vanished in the direction of Mellstock.
CHAPTER III.
A CONFESSION
It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till eleven o’clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off the grass at every step the passer took.
Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter’s daughter, were in such a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together from Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously during the whole time. There had been just enough difficulty attending its development, and just enough finesse required in keeping it private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on Fancy’s part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, Dick’s heart had been at all times as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy’s horizon now.
“She is so well off—better than any of us,” Susan Dewy was saying. “Her father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curate or anything of that kind if she contrived a little.”
“I don’t think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when he knew I couldn’t go,” replied Fancy uneasily.