Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/514

84 laughed in his face. He wanted to marry her immediately; she had played with him long enough, he thought; and one evening when she had been soft and coy, rather than teasing, he put his fortune to the proof. She told him flatly she did not like him—wherein Nelly told anything but the truth, as perhaps better women have done under like circumstances.

Wilfred took her reply in earnest, and went away in a rage—mad, jealous, and burning with passionate disappointment. Hester hated Kelly, and gave her not a few hard words; for in her camp life, the mother had culled some epithets, more expressive than polite, which she used with vigorous truth when her wrath was excited. She kept her son's wound raw and sore by frequent scornful allusions to his "Nelly Graceless," and did her best to widen the breach between them with ample success.

Wilfred staid away from the Prices' for ten whole days.

This desertion did not suit the golden-headed, but tinsel-hearted little coquette. She contrived to meet him in a shady wood-walk, where they had often loitered together. He was out with his dog and gun; very ill at ease in mind, for his handsome face looked sullen and dangerous, and he would not see her as she passed by. Mortified and angry, Nelly went home and cried herself ill. Wilfred heard she had caught a fever, and must needs go to ask. She met him at the garden gate, with a smile and a blush; whereat Wilfred was so glad, that he forgot to reproach her. There was, in consequence, a complete reconciliation, ratified by kisses and promises—light coin with beauty Nell, but real heart-gold with poor infatuated Wilfred. Hester almost despised her son when she heard of it.

"She is only fooling thee, lad!" said she, indignantly. "Come a richer suitor to the door, she'll throw thee over. She is only a light, false-hearted lass, not worth a whistle of thine."

Therein Hester spake truth.

Nelly played with her lover as a cat plays with a mouse. Wilfred urged their marriage. She would one day, and the next day she would not. Then arose other difficulties. Hester did not want an interloper by her fireside, and would not give up the farm to her son; in fact, she was so jealous of his affection, that the thought