aid, 'I bet I'll get someone sooner than you, anyway.
You don't seem to be able to get anyone, and it's pretty near time you
thought of settlin' down and gettin' married. I wish _someone_ would
have you.'

"He hit her pretty hard there, but it served her right. She got as good
as she gave. She looked at me and went all colours, and then she went
back to her washtub.

"She was mighty quiet at tea-time--she seemed hurt a lot, and I began to
feel sorry I'd laughed at the old man's joke, for she was really a good,
hard-working girl, and you couldn't help liking her.

"So after tea I went out to her in the kitchen, where she was washing
up, to try and cheer her up a bit. She'd scarcely speak at first, except
to say 'Yes' or 'No', and kept her face turned away from me; and I could
see that she'd been crying. I began to feel sorry for her and mad at the
old man, and I started to comfort her. But I didn't go the right way to
work about it. I told her that she mustn't take any notice of the old
cove, as he didn't mean half he said. But she seemed to take it harder
than ever, and at last I got so sorry for her that I told her that _I'd_
have her if she'd have me."

"And what did she say?" asked Mitchell's mate, after a pause.

"She said she wouldn't have me at any price!"

The mate laughed, and Mitchell grinned his quiet grin.

"Well, this set me thinking," he continued. "I always knew I was a
dashed ugly cove, and I began to wonder whether any girl would really
have me; and I kept on it till at last I made up my mind to find out and
settle the matter for good--or bad.

"There was another farmer's daughter living close by, and I met her
pretty often coming home from work, and sometimes I had a yarn with her.
She was plain, and no mistake: Mary was a Venus alongside of her. She
had feet like a Lascar, and hands about ten sizes too large for her,
and a face like that camel--only red; she walked like a camel, too. She
looked like a ladder with a dress on, and she didn't know a great A from
a corner cupboard.

"Well, one evening I met her at the sliprails, and presently I asked
her, for a joke, if she'd marry me. Mind you, I never wanted to marry
_her_; I was only curious to know whether any girl would have me.

"She turned away her face and seemed to hesitate, and I was just turning
away and beginning to think I was a dashed hopeless case, when all of a
sudden she fell up against me and said she'd be my wife.... And it wa