“Two-and-twenty, sir.”
“Can you milk and cook and use your needle?”
Bess smiled and confessed to all these accomplishments.
“I would serve in a farm-house,” she said, “to get myself an honest home.”
Dr. Sugg appeared to be pondering the matter with all the gravity he could gather. That he was justified in abetting the girl’s frank spirit of independence he had no doubt at all. Besides, his efforts on her behalf could not fail to please Richard Jeffray should that gentleman recover.
“Listen to me, my dear,” he said, at length. “Farmer Pelham, of Beechhurst, needs a girl. He is an honest fellow, and his wife is a kindly body. Supposing I take my nag and see about the place for you?”
Bess looked as though she were ready to embrace Dr. Sugg and his proposal at one and the same moment.
“I should bless the chance, sir,” she said.
“That is spoken like a woman of sense.”
“I don’t mind about the pay, sir.”