iness."

"You'd best mind what you say about him!" Rose said, stitching away
with feverish rapidity. "He wants me to marry him."

"Does he now? Banns put up on Sunday, I suppose?" said Dixon, with a
palpable sneer.

"No; we should wait," faltered Rose.

"I should not have thought you were of the waiting sort. Then it's
good-bye to me."

"It will be good-bye if I promise; he'll be all or nothing. He's just
mad about me."

"Then you've not promised yet?" asked Dixon, eagerly. "You've not been
silly enough to do that, Rose?"

"He won't wait; I'm to tell him on Sunday night. And oh! I'm
miserable: I don't know what to do!" And Rose let her work fall in her
lap, and burst into sobbing.

"Don't cry! don't take on! I'll tell you what to do, my dear. Promise
to marry me instead of that hot-headed fool, Burney. Settle it all
right away, and don't fash your head any more about it. There need be
no waiting--I'll go and see the vicar about the banns,--and if so be
that we can't get the rooms over the stables to ourselves, I'll ask Mr.
Lessing to give us a cottage. There! you see I'm in earnest. It would
be grand to hear your name given out in church the next Sunday as ever
is, now wouldn't it?" and Dixon pulled away Rose's hands from her face,
and smiled down on her.

"Oh, I couldn't!" Rose said. "There's Tom."

"That would settle Tom fast enough."

Rose never knew quite how it happened; but half an hour later Dixon
left without any order for the carriage on the morrow, but with Rose's
promise that she would marry him as soon as he liked, and with her
consent that the banns should be published on the following Sunday.
Rose's silly little head was in such a whirl of delightful excitement
that, for the time being, Tom and his misery were forgotten. There was
the wedding to think of, and the clothes that must be made, and the
question of hat versus veil, for the wedding-day loomed large in the
foreground. She wondered how Miss Webster would look when she gave her
a month's notice that night; and whether Mrs. Webster would offer to
have the wedding breakfast at the Court. It was almost certain that as
Dixon was coachman, he would have the loan of the carriage; and she
would be driven to the church that day for all the world just like a
lady, and half the village would turn out to see her married. And then
Tom's large, reproachful eyes, with their expression of dumb pain,
stared at her out of the brillia