"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my being here alone with you like this. I don't think you had better come in with me."
"That's rather unpleasant, dear."
"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, because you must be tired."
"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if you recollect, Fancy."
"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don't know what to do."
"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy tea-tray.
"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. "You do know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a tete-a-tete anywhere with anybody."
"But I am not ANY body!" exclaimed Dick.
"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I were really engaged to be married to him."
"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!"
"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it seems as if I meant you to say that!"
"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will you be my wife?"
"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did coming along the road," she remarked, as if she had not heard the latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each.
"What did I say?"
"About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig."
"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you do care for me?"
"Yes."
"Very much?"
"Yes."
"And you'll be my own wife?"
Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked expectantly at the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth.
"Yes--if father will let me."
Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known.
"O no!" said Fancy solemnly.
The modest Dick drew back a little.
"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!--here's somebody coming!" she whisperingly exclaimed.
* * *
Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's lips had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared deeply stained. The landlord was standing in the yard.
"Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!" he laughed, letting the laugh slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise in its exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time.
"This will never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having some too, and biding such a fine long time!"
"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise.
"Yes, yes! Ha-ha!" smiting the landlord under the ribs in return.
"Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!"
"You know, of course!"
"Yes, of course! But--that is--I don't."
"Why about--between that young lady and me?" nodding to the window of the room that Fancy occupied.
"No; not I!" said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles.
"And you don't!"
"Not a word, I'll take my oath!"
"But you laughed when I laughed."
"Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!"
"Really, you don't know? Goodness--not knowing that!"
"I'll take my oath I don't!"
"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, "we're engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her."
"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all then fell a-talking o' family matters; but neither one o' them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your father's own wedding. 'Tisn't what I should have expected from an old neighbour!"
"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at that time; in fact, 'twasn't settled."
"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting day. Heu-heu!"
"No, 'twasn't done Sunday in particular."
"After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper good time."
"O no, 'twasn't done then."
"Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?"
"Not at all; I wouldn't think of getting engaged in a dog-cart."
"Dammy--might as well have said at once, the WHEN be blowed!
Anyhow, 'tis a fine day, and I hope next time you'll come as one."
Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, and vanished in the direction of Mellstock.
