lewood,' she answered, looking up at
him, 'but I don't like you in a marrying way, and I never shall.'

'As for never shall,' said he, 'that remains to be seen.'

He straightened himself as he spoke, and releasing the walking-stick
with his left hand put the point of it softly, slowly, and strongly down
upon the gravel, dinting the ground pretty deeply with the pressure.

'Let's look at it a little further,' he added.

'It is of no use,' the girl answered pleadingly. 'It hurts us both, and
it can do no good at all.'

'Let's look at it a bit further,' he said again. 'This day month you
said there was nobody you'd seen you liked better than me. Is that true
still?'

'It is quite true,' she answered, 'but it makes no difference.'

'That remains to be seen,' said John Thistlewood again. 'And as for not
liking me in a marrying way, that's a thing a maid can't be supposed to
know much of.' He waited doggedly as if to hear her deny this, but she
made no answer. 'You've known me all your life, Bertha, and you never
knew anything again me.'

'Never,' she said, almost eagerly.

'I'm well-to-do,' he went on stolidly, but with all his force, as if
he were pushing against a wall too heavy to be moved by any pressure he
could bring to bear against it, and yet was resolute to have it down.
'I'm not too old to be a reasonable match for a maid of your years.
You've had my heart this five years I waited two afore I spoke at all
There's a many--not that I speak it in a bragging way--as would be
willing enough to have me.'

'It's a pity you can't take a fancy to one of them,' she said, with
perfect simplicity and good faith.

'Perhaps it is,' answered Thistlewood, with a dogged sigh; 'but be that
as it may, I can't and shan't. Where my fancy lies it stays. I didn't
give my heart away to take it back again. You'll wed me yet, Bertha, and
when you do you'll be surprised to think you didn't do it long before.'

At this point the voice of a third person broke in upon the colloquy.

'That caps all!' said the voice. 'There's Mr. Forbes, the Scotch
gardener at my Lord Barfield's, tells me of a lad in his parts as prayed
the Lord for a good consate of himself. That's a prayer as you'll never
find occasion t'offer, John Thistlewood.'

'Maybe not, Mrs. Fellowes,' answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner
of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a
braggart way.'

'No--no,' returned the still invisible intrude