“Thank you, Will.”
“As for the matter of that, I love thee—ah! like I love old Rover here.”
“Thank you again, Will.”
“And so I’ve brought along a sixpence—here it is—and we’ll break it together.” Here he bent and broke the coin with his strong fingers. “My half goes into my pocket—so; and the other half is thine—there.” He threw it on the table. “Well, that’s done.” He stood up, looked at me sorrowfully, and heaved a great sigh. “I doubt I’ve a done wrong. Hadst been going to stay, a’ woulden a’ spoke yet awhile. Liberty is sweet—girls are skittish. Well, we’ll take a twelvemonth yet. There’s no hurry. Plenty time before us. I shall have my liberty for that while. Mayhap I will fetch thee in the spring. Ay, May’s the best month to leave the dogs and the birds, though the vermin will begin to swarm—rot ’em! Come, Rover. Good-bye, wench.”
He gave her a resounding kiss on the cheek, and turned away.
The girl laughed. She did not pick up the broken sixpence, which, indeed, she hardly noticed, her mind being full of many things.
Presently Nancy came, and the two girls spent a miserable evening together, in great love and friendship.
Now, how could an ignorant country girl, who had never thought over these things at all, guess that she had engaged herself to be married, in one day, in one hour even, to two different men? Yet that was exactly what this foolish Kitty had actually done.
FOOTNOTES
[A] When, some months later, Kitty went to the publisher, that gentleman informed her that there was no money to receive, because he had been a loser by the publication of the books.