smiling like the sun; Jim had told the parson, had got the ringers in
tow, and the clerk awaiting; and then--you was GONE! Then Jim turned
as pale as rendlewood, and busted out, "If she don't marry me to-
day," 'a said, "she don't marry me at all! No; let her look
elsewhere for a husband. For tew years I've put up with her haughty
tricks and her takings," 'a said. "I've droudged and I've traipsed,
I've bought and I've sold, all wi' an eye to her; I've suffered
horseflesh," he says--yes, them was his noble words--"but I'll suffer
it no longer. She shall go!" "Jim," says I, "you be a man. If
she's alive, I commend 'ee; if she's dead, pity my old age." "She
isn't dead," says he; "for I've just heard she was seen walking off
across the fields this morning, looking all of a scornful triumph."
He turned round and went, and the rest o' the neighbours went; and
here be I left to the reproach o't.'

'He was too hasty,' murmured Margery. 'For now he's said this I
can't marry him to-morrow, as I might ha' done; and perhaps so much
the better.'

'You can be so calm about it, can ye? Be my arrangements nothing,
then, that you should break 'em up, and say off hand what wasn't done
to-day might ha' been done to-morrow, and such flick-flack? Out o'
my sight! I won't hear any more. I won't speak to 'ee any more.'

'I'll go away, and then you'll be sorry!'

'Very well, go. Sorry--not I.'

He turned and stamped his way into the cheese-room. Margery went
upstairs. She too was excited now, and instead of fortifying herself