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“We don’t want to chatter about that,” declared her son.”I got to think it over, and it’s going to tie my wool, I can tell you, for there’s a bit of craft somewheres, I’ll take my oath. If there ain’t, there ought to be!”

Over the alluring project his decision wavered for days, until his mother became mortified at his inexplicable vacillation.

“I tell you,” he cried, “I can’t make tops or bottoms of it all. I like the girl well enough, but I like Sophy, too, and it’s no good beating about the bush. I like Sophy, she’s the girl I love; but Mary’s a fine creature, and money like that wants looking at before you throw it away, love or no love. Three thousand pounds! I’d be a made man.”

And as if in sheer spite to his mother; as if a bushel of money lay on the doorstep for him to kick over whenever the fancy seized him; in short (as Mrs. Witlow very clearly intimated) as if in contempt of Providence he began to pursue Sophy Daws with a new fervour, and walked with that young girl more than he was accustomed to, more than ever before; in fact, as his mother bemoaned, more than he had need to. It was unreasonable, it was a shame, a foolishness; it wasn’t decent and it wasn’t safe.

On his weekly visits to the farm his mind still wavered. Mrs. Sadgrove let him alone; she was very good, she did not pester him with questions and entreaties. There was Mary with her white dress and her red hair and her silence; a girl with a great fortune, walking about the yard, or sitting in the room, and casting not a glance upon him. Not that he would have known it if she did, for now he was just as shy of her. Mrs. Sadgrove often left them alone, but when they were alone he could not dish up a word for the pretty maid; he was dumb as a statue. If either she or her mother had lifted so much as a finger then there would have been an end to his hesitations or suspicions, for in Mary’s presence the fine glory of the girl seized him incontinently; he was again full of a longing to press her lips, to lay down his doubts, to touch her bosom—though he could not think she would ever allow that ! Not an atom of doubt about her ever visited him; she was unaware of her mother’s queer project. Rather, if she became aware he was sure it would be the end of him. Too beautiful she was, too learned, and too rich. Decidedly it was his native cunning, and no want of love, that inhibited him. Folks with property did not often come along and bid you help yourself. Not very often! And throw in a grand bright girl, just for good measure as you might say. Not very often!

For weeks the higgler made his customary calls, and each time the outcome was the same; no more, no less.”Some dodge,” he mused, “something the girl don’t know and the mother does.” Were they going bankrupt, or were they mortgaged up to the neck, or was there anything the matter with the girl, or was it just the mother wanted to get hold of him? He knew his own value if he didn’t know his own mind, and his value couldn’t match that girl any more than his mind could. So what did they want him for? Whatever it was, Harvey Witlow was ready for it whenever he was in Mary’s presence, but once away from her his own craftiness asserted itself: it was a snare, they were trying to make a mock of him!