‘Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.’
And Annie could have wept for pity of him;
And yet she held him on delayingly
With many a scarce-believable excuse,
Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, 470
Till half-another year had slipped away.
By this the lazy gossips of the port,
Abhorrent of a calculation crost
Began to chafe as at a personal wrong.
Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; 475