"Ah! You're the right one. I thought I'd fetch you."
Mary gave him her hand, smilingly asking:
"Did you wish to see me, sir?"
"Yes; the mate has been out here trying to rig the pump on me, but it wouldn't draw. What I'm here for concerns nobody but you and Dorn. Come out to the gate, for she's a listening beside that window. I just see the curtain shake."
Mary started at mention of her lover's name by this stranger, and unhesitatingly accompanied him as he requested; while Aunt Thatcher, who was indeed listening by the window, could almost have torn her sun-bonnet strings with vexation and rage when they passed beyond range of her hearing.
Billy, like many other maladroits, flattered himself that he had no little skill in conducting a delicate mission, and thought it was rather a neat way of sparing the girl's feelings to affect to be very busy refilling his pipe, without looking at her, as he put the blunt question:
"Be you Dorn Hackett's sweetheart?"
Mary blushed and stammered, not knowing what to reply.
"'Cause," continued Billy, "he's maybe in some trouble."
Trouble! Trouble for Dorn! That thought swept away in an instant her timidity and maiden bashfulness, and anxiously she replied: