“My trouble is just this, sir,” she confessed: “My kinsfolk want to bully me into marriage against my will, and I ran away from home last night, and came to see Mr. Jeffray yonder, who had promised to be my friend.”
Parson Sugg elevated his eyebrows and noticed that Bess was blushing prettily.
“Mr. Jeffray’s ill with the small-pox,” he said.
“So they told me, sir, at the house. It was a great distress to me.”
Dr. Sugg took snuff, sneezed twice with emphasis, and glanced at Bess with a curious twinkle in his eyes.
“Are you from Pevensel, my dear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One of the Grimshaws, eh?”
Bess nodded, and watched the stolid passage of thought over the rector’s good-natured countenance.
“And are you the girl, my dear, for whom Mr. Jeffray had his head broken in the woods?”