Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/205

 "Suppose that half will not suffice me, dear?" says he.

"Why, then I'll give you all," answers she; "houses, gardens, everything."

"Then what will you do, coz [sic]?"

"Go hence, as you were going but just now," answers she, trembling.

"Why, that's as if you took the diamond from its setting, and left me nothing but the foil," says he. "Oh, I would order it another way: give me the gem, and let who will take what remains. Unless these little hands are mine to hold for ever, I will take nothing from them."

"They are thine, dear love," cries she, in a transport, flinging them about his neck, "and my heart as well."

At this conjuncture I thought it advisable to steal softly away to the bend of the road; for surely any one coming this way by accident, and finding them locked together thus in tender embrace on the king's highway, would have fallen to some gross conclusion, not understanding their circumstances, and so might have offended their delicacy by some rude jest. And I had not parted myself here a couple of minutes, ere I spied a team of four stout horses coming over the brow of the hill, drawing the stage waggon behind them which plies betwixt Sevenoaks and London. This prompting me to a happy notion, I returned to the happy, smiling pair, who were now seated again upon the bridge, hand in hand, and says I:

"My dear friends,—for so I think I may now count you, sir, as well as my Mistress Judith here,—the waggon is coming down the hill, by which I had intended to go to London this morning upon some pressing business. And so, Madam, if your cousin will take my horse and conduct