"I'll wait until you come out," said John. Barefoot went in to put down the water, and arrange the fire, and make Marianne comfortable in bed.
When she came out John was still standing there and the dog jumped up at her. For a long time they stood under the parental tree, which rustled quietly and bowed its branches. They talked of all kinds of things; John praised her cleverness and her quick mind, and at last said:
"If you should ever want to change your place, you would be the very person for my mother."
"That is the greatest praise that anybody in the world could give me!" Barefoot declared. "I still have a keepsake from your mother." And then she related the incident of their meeting his mother, and both laughed when Barefoot told how Damie could not forget that Dame Landfried owed him a pair of leather-breeches.
"And he shall have them," John declared.
They then walked back together as far as the village, and John gave her his hand when he bade her "Good night." Barefoot wanted to tell him that he had shaken hands with her once before, but, as if frightened by the thought, she fled away from him and ran into the house; she did not even return his "Good night." John, puzzled and thoughtful, returned to his room at the "Heathcock."
The next morning Barefoot found that the swelling in her face had vanished as if by magic. And never had she caroled more gaily through the house and yard, through the stable and barn, than she did today. And yet today was the day when it was to be decided, the day that John was to declare himself. Farmer Rodel did not want to have his sister talked about by any one, in case it should all come to nothing after all.
Nearly the whole day John sat in the room with Rose, who was making a man's shirt. Toward evening Mistress Rodel's parents came, along with other relatives. It must be decided one way or the other today.
The roast was sputtering in the kitchen, the pine wood cracking and snapping, and Barefoot's cheeks were glowing, heated by the fire on the hearth and the fire that was burning within her. Crappy Zachy walked back and forth and up and down with an air of great importance, and made himself very much at home—he even smoked Farmer Rodel's pipe.
"Then it is settled after all," said Barefoot to herself, mournfully.