"Yes, dearest; and then I call at that house, and stick there till they guess what I would be at, and ask me, too."
Catharine smiled, and proceeded to remind him that thrice a week she permitted him to ride over from Bolton, (a distance of fifteen miles,) to see her.
"Yes," replied Griffith, "and I must say you always come, wet or dry, to the shrubbery-gate, and put your hand in mine a minute. And, Kate," said he, piteously, "at the bare thought of your putting that same dear hand in another man's, my heart turns sick within me, and my skin burns and trembles on me."
"But you have no cause," said Catharine, soothingly. "Nobody, except yourself, doubts my affection for you. You are often thrown in my teeth, Griffith,—and" (clenching her own) "I like you all the better, of course."
Griffith replied with a burst of gratitude; and then, as men will, proceeded to encroach.
"Ah," said he, "if you would but pluck up courage, and take the matrimonial fence with me at once."
Miss Peyton sighed at that, and drooped a little upon her saddle. After a pause, she enumerated the "just impediments." She reminded him that neither of them had means to marry on.
He made light of that; he should soon have plenty; Mr. Charlton has as good as told him he was to have Bolton Hall and Grange: "Six hundred acres, Kate, besides the park and paddocks."
In his warmth he forgot that Catharine was to have been Mr. Charlton's heir. Catharine was too high-minded to bear Griffith any grudge; but she colored a little, and said she was averse to come to him a penniless bride.
"Why, what matters it which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both?" said Griffith, with an air of astonishment.