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“Why, mother, that’s it,” cried the daughter, with something between a laugh and a sob. “May be if they came one at a time I’d know what to say.”

“What have you agin Adam Wilson?”

“Nothing. But I have nothing against Elias Mason.”

“Nor I, either. But I know which is the most proper-looking young man.”

“Looks isn’t everything, mother. You should hear Elias Mason talk. You should hear him repeat poetry.”

“Well, then, have Elias.”

“Ah, but I haven’t the heart to turn against Adam.”

“There, now! I never saw such a gal. You’re like a calf betwixt two hayricks; you have a nibble at the one and a nibble at the other. There’s not one in a hundred as lucky as you. Here’s Adam with three pound ten a week, foreman already at the Chalk Works, and likely enough to be manager if he’s spared. And there’s Elias, head telegraph clerk at the Post Office, and earning good money too. You can’t keep ’em both on. You’ve got to take one or t’other, and it’s my belief you’ll get neither if you don’t stop this shilly-shally.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want them. What do they want to come bothering for?”

“It’s human natur’, gal. They must do it. If they didn’t, you’d be the first to cry out maybe. It’s in the Scriptures. ‘Man is born for woman, as the sparks fly upwards.'” She looked up out of the corner of her eyes as if not very sure of her quotation. “Why, here be that dratted Bill. The good book says as we are all made of clay, but Bill does show it more than any lad I ever saw.”

They had turned from the road into a narrow, deeply rutted lane, which led towards the farm. A youth was running towards them, loose-jointed and long-limbed, with a boyish, lumbering haste, clumping fearlessly with his great yellow clogs through pool and mire. He wore brown corduroys, a dingy shirt, and a red handkerchief tied loosely round his neck. A tattered old straw hat was tilted back upon his shock of coarse, matted, brown hair. His sleeves were turned up to the elbows, and his arms and face were both tanned and roughened until his skin looked like the bark of some young sapling. As he looked up at the sound of the steps, his face with its blue eyes, brown skin, and first slight down of a tawny moustache, was not an uncomely one, were it not marred by the heavy, stolid, somewhat sulky expression of the country yokel.

“Please, mum,” said he, touching the brim of his wreck of a hat, “measter seed ye coming. He sent to say as ‘ow ‘e were in the five-acre lot.”

“Run back, Bill, and say that we are coming,” answered the farmer’s wife, and the awkward figure sped away upon its return journey.

“I say, mother, what is Bill’s other name?” asked the girl, with languid curiosity.

“He’s not got one.”

“No name?”

“No, Dolly, he’s a found child, and never had no father or mother that ever was heard of. We had him from the work’us when he was seven, to chop mangel wurzel, and here he’s been ever since, nigh twelve year. He was Bill there, and he’s Bill here.”

“What fun! Fancy having only one name. I wonder what they’ll call his wife?”

“I don’t know. Time to talk of that when he can keep one. But now, Dolly dear, here’s your father and Adam Wilson comin’ across the field. I want to see you settled, Dolly. He’s a steady young man. He’s blue ribbon, and has money in the Post Office.”

“I wish I knew which liked me best,” said her daughter glancing from under her hat-brim at the approaching figures. “That’s the one I should like. But it’s all right, mother, and I know how to find out, so don’t you fret yourself any more.”