Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/365

Rh affairs are far more engrossing no doubt. I say, Nell, when is your father coming back?"

"In March."

"Three whole months and part of another. If you think my patience will hold out till then, little woman, you are mistaken. I shall make you marry me before he comes back, to make all sure."

"No, you will not!" I say quickly; "just think of mother. And she has been such an angel to us. Only think of what it would be if he came back and found me gone! Supposing she had refused to hear of our being engaged or let you come here, save as an ordinary visitor, what should we have done then, pray?"

"Fitted up a cow-house, my dear, and sat in it from 'rosy morn till dewy eve.

"And quarrelled when we grew hungry," I say, laughing; "but mother is really frightened out of her wits. It is all very fine for us, you know, but we dance and she pays the piper."

"Sweet soul!" says Paul. "Now, if all mothers-in law were like her"

"Wait until she is yours," I say slyly; "you don't seem to know half the difficulties that lie in our path!"

"If he is very bad," says Paul, "it's easy enough to run away. Alice did."

"Yes; but The Towers is not far to run away to."

"I should like," he says, tightening his clasp on me, "to walk into a church one morning (you could put on a white bonnet and a clean print), without a gaping crowd of people looking on, and a pack of idiotic children throwing flowers for us to tumble over, and you and I be made man and wife; then eat a good breakfast, and set out for Paris, without being spattered with salt and pelted with slippers."

"You would take me to Paris?" I say in delight.

"Rather! you have never been abroad, have you?"