fter Sunday, the
long way round, if you please, through the meadows; and he used to
buy her scent and ribbons at the fair, and send her a big valentine
of lacepaper, and satin ribbons and things, though Lord knows where
he got the money from--honest, I hope--for he hadn't a penny to
bless himself with.

When my uncle found out all this nonsense, being a man of proper
spirit, he put his foot down, and says he--

'Mattie, my girl, I would be the last to say anything against any
young man you fancied, especially a decent chap like young Halibut,
if his prospects was anything like as good as could be expected, but
you can't pretend poor Jack's are, him being but a blacksmith's man,
and not in regular work even. Now, let's have no waterworks,' he
went on, for Mattie had got the corner of her apron up and her mouth
screwed down at the corners. 'I've known what poverty is, my girl,
and you shan't never have a taste of it with my consent.'

'I don't care how poor I be, father,' said Mattie, 'it's Jack I care
about.'

'There's a girl all over,' says uncle, for he was a sensible man in
those days. 'The bit I've put by for you, lass, it's enough for one,
but it's not enough for two. And when young Halibut can show as
much, you shall be cried in church the very next Sunday. But,
meantime, there must be no kisses, no more letters, and no more
walking home from churches. Now, you give me your word--and keep it
I know you will--like an honest girl.'

So Mattie she gave him her word, though much against her will; and
as for Jack, I suppose, man-like, he didn't care much about staying
in the village after there was a stop put to his philandering and
kissing and scent and so on. So what does he do, but he ups and offs
to America (assisted emigration) 'to make his fortune,' says he.

And never word nor sign did we hear of him for three blessed years.
Mattie was getting quite an old maid, nigh on two-and-twenty, and I
was past nineteen, when one morning there come a letter from Jack.

My father and mother were dead this long time, so I lived with uncle
and Mattie at the farm. What offers I had had is neither here nor
there. At any rate, whatever they were, they weren't good enough.

But Mattie might have been married twice over if she had liked, and
to folks that would have been quite a catch to a girl like her
getting on in years. She might have had young Bath for one, the
strawberry grower; and what if he did drink a bit of a S