I trow she is no better."
"Did you not tell me how she held out her house against the
Roundheads, and went to prison for sheltering Cavaliers?"
"I only wish they had kept her there. All old women be Puritans at
heart. I say Stead, I'll have done with service. Let us be wed at
once."
Stead could hardly breathe at this proposition. "But I have only
nine pounds and two crowns and--" he began.
"No matter, there be other ways," she went on. "Get the house built,
and I'll come, and we will have curds and whey all the summer, and
mistress and all her friends will come out and drink it, and eat
strawberries!"
"But the Squire will never build the place up unless I bring more in
hand."
"You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead,"
said Emlyn, "you know where to get at more, and so do I."
Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment.
"Numskull!" she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of
banter that he never had withstood, "you know what I mean, though
maybe you would not have me say it in the street, you that have
secrets.
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