o," exclaimed Mehetabel, the color rushing to her cheeks in
anger, "you want me as your housekeeper that you may make a nose
at your sister and deny her the house."

"I won't have any other woman in my house but yourself."

"You will have to wait a long time before you get me."

"I mean all fair and honorable," said Jonas. "I didn't say
housekeeper, did I? I say wife. If any chap had said to me,
Bideabout, you are putting your feet into a rabbit net, and will
be caught, and--'" he made a sign as if knocking a rabbit's neck
to kill it--"I say, had any one said that, I'd a' laughed at him
as a fool."

"You may laugh at him still," said the girl. "No one that I know
has set any net for you."

"You have," he sniggered. "Aye, and caught me."

"I!" laughed Mehetabel contemptuously, "I spread a net for you?
It is you who pursue and pester me. I never gave you a thought
save how to make you keep at arm's length."

"You say that to me." His color went.

"It is ridiculous, it is insulting of you to speak to me of netting
and catching. What do I want of you save to be let go my way."

"Come, Mehetabel," said the Broom-Squire caressingly, "we won't
quarrel about words. I didn't mean what you have put on me. I want
you to come and be my wife. It isn't only that I've had a quarrel
with my sister. There's more than that. There is something like a
stoat at my heart, biting there, and I have no rest till you
say--'I'll have you, Jonas!'"

"The stoat must hang on. I can't say that."

"Why not?"

"I am not obliged to give a reason."

"Will you not have me?"

"No, Bideabout, I will not. How can I take an offer made in this
way? When you ask me to enable you to be rude to your sister, when
you speak of me as laying traps for you; and when you stay me on
my road as if you were a footpad."

Again she made an attempt to go in the direction of the hayfield.
Her bosom was heaving with anger, her nostrils were quivering.

Again he arrested her.

"If you will not let me go," said she, "I will call for help. Here
comes father. He shall protect me."

"I'll have you yet," said the Broom-Squire with a sneer. "If it
ain't you that nets me, then it'll be I net you, Mehetabel."

CHAPTER X.

INTO THE NET.

"We must have cake and ale for the hayfield," said Mrs. Verstage.
"Of ale there be plenty in the house, but for cake, I must bake.
It ort to ha' been done afore. Fresh cakes goes twice as fast as
stale, but blessin'