Page:Far from the Madding Crowd Vol 1.djvu/61

 deepened: hers was already deep, not, as it appeared, from emotion, but from running.

"Farmer Oak—I—" she said, pausing for want of breath, pulling up in front of him with a slanted face, and putting her hand to her side.

"I have just called to see you," said Gabriel, pending her further speech.

"Yes—I know that," she said, panting like a robin, her face red and moist from her exertions, like a peony petal before the sun dries off the dew. "I didn't know you had come (pant) to ask to have me, or I should have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say (pant) that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me (pant)"

Gabriel expanded. "I'm sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear," he said, with a grateful sense of favours to come. "Wait a bit till you've found your breath."

"—It was quite a mistake—aunt's telling you I had a young man already," Bathsheba went on. "I haven't a sweetheart at all (pant), and I never had one, and I thought that, as times go with women, it was such a pity to send you away thinking that I had several."

"Really and trewly I am glad to hear that!" said Farmer Oak, smiling one of his long special smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out