****, dressed in his 'second-best' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting-room with a glow of pleasure on his face.
It was two o'clock on Friday, the day be fore her contemplated visit to her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the school the children had been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition to the usual Saturday.
"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can't do anything, I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting with me!"
She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across her lap and scissors in her hand.
"Go nutting! Yes. But I'm afraid I can't go for an hour or so."
"Why not? 'Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together for weeks."
"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;--I find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I told the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead of that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect fright."
"How long will you be?" he inquired, looking rather disappointed.
"Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear."
**** sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the snipping and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a walking-stick he had cut from the hedge as he came along.
Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the answers were so negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the greater part in her lap with the blue dress.
The clock struck three. **** arose from his seat, walked round the room with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then sounded a few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he could find, then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand.
Still the snipping and sewing went on.
The clock struck four. **** fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies on the ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was constructed that he could have delivered a lecture on the subject.
Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he went into her garden and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly feminine aspect; then pulled up several weeds, and came in again.
The clock struck five, and still the snipping and sewing went on.
**** attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking-stick, then threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally overturned a vase of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill across the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to modify considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of England and Wales.
"Well, ****, you needn't have made quite such a mess."
"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his brain.
"Fancy."
"Yes."
"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I shall be with you, and ask your father for you?"
"So I am."
"And the blue one only on Sunday?"
"And the blue one Sunday."
"Well, dear, I sha'n't be at Yalbury Sunday to see it."
"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with father, and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you know; and it did set so badly round the neck."
"I never noticed it, and 'tis like nobody else would."
"They might."
"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty as the blue one."
"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it didn't cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the same I wore Saturday."
"Then wear the striped one, dear."
"I might."
"Or the dark one."
"Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven't seen."
"I see, I see," said ****, in a voice in which the tones of love were decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his thoughts meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best in the world, as she says, am to understand that my poor half-holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to appear more striking than usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young men; and I not there, either."
"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is good enough for the youths of Longpuddle," he said.
"No, not that exactly, ****. Still, you see, I do want--to look pretty to them--there, that's honest! But I sha'n't be much longer."
"How much?"
"A quarter of an hour."
"Very well; I'll come in in a quarter of an hour."
"Why go away?"
"I mid as well."
