"Beg pardon--but did I mention the side o' bacon I've been promised for Tuesday. It's good bacon."
Mavis Dale with courteous finality dismissed him; but Mary, whose ordinarily red cheeks had become a fiery crimson, spoke hotly and angrily.
"Drat the man. I've no patience with him. He ought to know better, going on so."
"But what harm does he do, poor fellow," said Mavis, indulgently, "except muddling away his own time?"
"He's up to no good," said Mary; and she flounced across to the door, and looked out at the now empty path. "Hanging about like that! Why can't he keep away? I don't want him."
Mrs. Goudie, at the sink, screwed up her wrinkled nut-cracker face, and chuckled.
"No, mum, she don't want un. But he wants she."
And, astonishing as it might seem, this was truly the case. The higgler had fallen in love with Mary; and she, apparently without a single explicit word, had understood the nature of the emotion that stirred his breast. He had somehow surrounded her with an atmosphere of admiration--anyhow he had made her understand.
Mavis laughed gaily, and chaffed Mary about her conquest; and henceforth she more or less obliterated herself when this visitor called, and allowed the servant to conduct all transactions with him.
Mary was always very stern, disparaging his goods, and beating down his prices; while he stood sheepishly grinning, and in no wise protesting against her harshness. He now of course stayed longer than ever, indeed only withdrew when Mary indignantly drove him away.
"Be off, can't you?" cried Mary. "I'm ashamed of you."
"Haw, haw," chuckled Mrs. Goudie. "Don't she peck at un fierce."
"Yes, Mary," and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused. "I do think you're rather cruel to him."
"'Twill be t'other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps."
Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work. "I ain't afeard o' that day, Mrs. Goudie. He isn't going the right way to win me, I can tell him. I hate his sly ways."
Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship. Except for the disparity of years it seemed a desirable match. It was known that he had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.