only waiting the appointed time to offer. For a long while I thought he
would put the proposal in a letter, and then, remembering his caution and
his terror of the written word, I guessed he'd never so far commit himself
as to set it down. But I was ready and willing, for Greg had a tidy little
greengrocer's business and they counted him a snug man. A bachelor of
sixty-two he was--clean as a new pin of a Sunday and very well thought
upon. A bearded man, with a wrinkled brow and eyes that looked shifty to a
stranger; but 'twas only his undying caution made them so. As straight as
any other greengrocer, and straighter than some. And I was tolerable poor,
but not lacking in gifts to shine, given the chance; and I knew Gregory
inside out, you may say, and felt that in the shop and the home, he'd be a
happier man for my company.

So, when the year was out and he still kept hanging on, though never a day
passed but he looked in, or brought a bunch of pretty fresh green stuff, I
felt the man's hand must be strengthened.

"I'll save him from himself in this matter," I thought. "He's got a way of
thinking time and eternity be the same thing, and he's looked all round
the bargain for more'n a year, so 'tis up to me to help him in the way he
very clearly wants to go." And I set about him and made it easy for him to
see he wouldn't get "No" for an answer when he brought himself to the
brink. I made it so clear as a woman could that I cared for Sweet, and I
aired my views and dropped a good few delicate-minded hints, such as that
he didn't look to be getting any younger and more didn't I; and when the
Rev. Champernowne preached a very fine performance on the words, "Now is
the accepted time," I rubbed it in fearlessly when Mr. Sweet next came for
a smoke and talk after his supper.

"Time don't stand still with the youngest," I said, "and for my part it
seems to go quicker with the middle-aged than anybody; and many a man and
woman too," I said, "have lived to look back and see what a lot they
missed, through too much caution and doubt. 'Nothing venture, nothing
have,' is a very true word," I said, "and when a man have only got to open
his mouth to win his heart's desire, he's a good bit of a fool, Greg, to
keep it shut."

I couldn't say no more than that, and he nodded and answered me that he
didn't know but what I might be right.

"There's not your equal for sense in the parish," he told me, and being
worked up a bit that even