ded, 'Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish to be
overheard?'
'I was talking only on business,' she said.
'Lizzy, be frank!' said the young man. 'If it was only on business, why
should anybody wish to listen to you?'
She looked curiously at him. 'What else do you think it could be, then?'
'Well--the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to
amuse an eavesdropper.'
'Ah yes,' she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. 'Well, my
cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and then,
that's true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he had been
speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much less serious
for me.'
'O Mrs. Newberry!'
'It would. Not that I should ha' chimed in with him, of course. I wish
it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have told me of
that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my cousin again.'
'But don't go away till I have spoken,' said the minister. 'I'll out
with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or No between us,
Lizzy; please do!' And he held out his hand, in which she freely allowed
her own to rest, but without speaking.
'You mean Yes by that?' he asked, after waiting a while.
'You may be my sweetheart, if you will.'
'Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and can
come back to marry you.'
'Because I am thinking--thinking of something else,' she said with
embarrassment. 'It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one
thing at a time.'
'At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall not be
allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never directly
encouraged him?'
She parried the question by saying, 'You see, he and his party have been
in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as I have
not denied him, it makes him rather forward.'
'Things--what things?'
'Tubs--they are called Things here.'
'But why don't you deny him, my dear Lizzy?'
'I cannot well.'
'You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get
your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the
next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them into
the street?'
She shook her head. 'I would not venture to offend the neighbours so
much as that,' said she, 'or do anything that would be so likely to put
poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen
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