Part 58 (1/2)

”Ever since Christmas Day?”

”Yes. I told him then that I loved you, Mary,--that I wanted to ask you to marry me,--but that I felt I was too poor----”

Her hand stole through his arm.

”Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?”

”Not as poor as I am,” he answered, promptly possessing himself of the caressing hand. ”In fact, you're quite rich compared to me. You've got a house, and you've got work, which brings you in enough to live upon,--now I haven't a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is rapidly coming to an end. I've nothing to depend upon but my book,--and if I can't sell that when it's finished, where am I? I'm nothing but a beggar--less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And I'm not going to marry you----”

She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.

”Oh Angus! I thought you were!”

He kissed the hand he held.

”Don't make fun of me, Mary! I won't allow it! I _am_ going to marry you!--but I'm _not_ going to marry you till I've sold my book. I don't suppose I'll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to start housekeeping together on. Won't it?”

”I should think it would indeed!” and she lifted her head with quite a proud gesture--”It will be a fortune!”

”Of course,” he went on, ”the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I can't add much to that, because to my mind, it's just perfect. I never want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work _for_ you, Mary, so that you'll not have to work for yourself, you understand?”

She nodded her head gravely.

”I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered.”

”Now you know I don't!” he expostulated.

”Yes, you do, Angus! If you don't want me to work, you want me to be a perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don't want to give up all my lace-mending. It's just as pleasant and interesting as the fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don't!”

She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment pa.s.sing under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed her.

”When _you_ become a perfectly unbearable person,” he said, ”then it will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.

You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for _me_.

See?”

A tender smile lingered in her eyes.

”I see!” and linking her arm through his again, she moved on with him over the thyme-scented gra.s.s, her dress gently sweeping across the stray cl.u.s.ters of golden cowslips that nodded here and there. ”_I_ will work for myself, _you_ will work for _me_, and old David will work for both of us!”

They laughed joyously.

”Poor old David!” said Angus. ”He's been wondering why I have not spoken to you before,--he declared he couldn't understand it. But then I wasn't quite sure whether you liked me at all----”

”Weren't you?” and her glance was eloquent.

”No--and I asked him to find out!”

She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.

”You asked him to find out? And did he?”