.
Retracing the few steps that lay between him and the girl, he said,--

"Don't take it cross, Liza, my lass; if I thought you really wanted to
speak to me, I'd stop anywhere for nowt--that I would. I'd stop
anywhere for nowt; but you always seemed to me over throng with yon
Robbie, that you did; but if for certain you really did want
me--that's to say, want to speak to me--I'd stop anywhere for nowt."

The liberal nature of the blacksmith's offer did not so much impress
the acute intelligence of the girl as the fact that Mr. Garth was
probably at that moment abroad upon an errand which he had not
undertaken from equally disinterested motives. Concerning the nature
of this errand she felt no particular curiosity, but that it was
unknown to her, and was being withheld from her, was of itself a
sufficient provocation to investigation.

Liza was a simple country wench, but it would be an error to suppose
that because she had been bred up in a city more diminutive than
anything that ever before gave itself the name, and because she had
lived among hand-looms and milking-pails, and had never seen a ball or
an opera, worn a mask or a domino, she was destitute of the instinct
for intrigue which in the gayer and busier world seems to be the
heritage of half her sex. Putting her head aside demurely, as with
eyes cast, down she ran her fingers through one of her loose ribbons,
she said softly,--

"And who says I'm so very partial to Robbie? _I_ never said so, did I?
Not that I say I'm partial to anybody else either--not that I _ay_
so--Joseph!"

The sly emphasis which was put upon the word that expressed Liza's
unwillingness to commit herself to a declaration of her affection for
some mysterious entity unknown seemed to Mr. Garth to be proof beyond
contempt of question that the girl before him implied an affection for
an entity no more mysterious than himself. The blacksmith's face
brightened, and his manner changed. What had before been almost a
supplicating tone, gave place to a tone of secure triumph.

"Liza," he said, "I'm going to bring that Robbie down a peg or two.
He's been a perching himself up alongside of Ralph Ray this last back
end, but I'm going to feckle him this turn."

"No, Joseph; are you going to do that, though?" said Liza, with a
brightening face that seemed to Mr. Garth to say, "Do it by all
means."

"Mayhap I am," said the blacksmith, significantly shaking his head. He
was snared as neatly by thi