Smiler, thinking this the close
of the conversation, prepared to move on.

"Weh-hey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there
maid is taking up thy thoughts more than's good for thee, my sonny.
Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself miserable about her
in one way or another."

"I don't know about that, father," said Dick rather stupidly.

"But I do--Wey, Smiler!--'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' 'em
nowadays but getting young men and leading 'em astray."

"Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that's all
you do."

"The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very
sensible indeed."

Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. "I
wish I was as rich as a squire when he's as poor as a crow," he murmured;
"I'd soon ask Fancy something."

"I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what
beest about, that's all."

Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,--We-hey, Smart!--I
did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha'n't; don't
you think she's a very good sort of--of--one?"

"Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to marry,
take the first respectable body that comes to hand--she's as good as any
other; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in the flourishes
there's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't see what the nation
a young feller like you--wi' a comfortable house and home, and father and
mother to take care o' thee, and who sent 'ee to a school so good that
'twas hardly fair to the other children--should want to go hollering
after a young woman for, when she's quietly making a husband in her
pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric'
wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set
'em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that's the long and the
short o't, my sonny."

Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason was
suggested by any object that met his gaze.

"For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose."

"Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave vent to
a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to
appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were
his own.

"Whether or no," said Dick, "I asked her a thing going along the road."

"Come to that, is it