“What! you there, Missie? Lor’ now, what can have brought ’ee out this weather?” “As if you did not see me, John! Why you must have seen me all along.” “This here be such a dreadful horse to smoke,” said John, who always shunned downright fibs, “that railly I never knows what I do see, when I be longside of un. Ever since us come out of Sennoaks, he have a been confusing of me. Not that I blames un, for what a can’t help. Now there, now! The watter be frozen in trough. Go to the bucket, jackanapes!” “Oh John, you never do seem to think--because you have got so many children only fit to go to school, you seem to think----” “Why, you said as I couldn’t think now, Missie, in the last breath of your purty mouth. Well, what is it as I ought to think? Whoa there! Stand still, wull’ee?” “John, you really are too bad. I have been all the morning making pancakes, and you shan’t have one, John Shorne, you shan’t, if you keep me waiting one more second.” “Is it consarning they fighting fellows you gets into such a hurry, Miss? Well, they have had a rare fight, sure enough! Fourscore officers gone to glory, besides all the others as was not worth counting!” “Oh John, you give me such a dreadful pain here! Let me know the worst, I do implore you.” “He ain’t one of ’em. Now, is that enough?” John Shorne made so little of true love now, and forgot his early situations so, in the bosom of a hungry family, that he looked upon Mabel’s “coorting” as an agreeable play-ground for little jokes. But now he was surprised and frightened at her way of taking them. “There, don’t ’ee cry now, that’s a dear,” he said, as she leaned on the shaft of the waggon, and sobbed so that the near wheeler began in pure sympathy to sniff at her. “Lord bless ’ee, there be nothing to cry about. He’ve abeen and dooed wonders, that ’a hath.” “Of course he has, John; he could not help it. He was sure to do wonders, don’t you see, if only--if only they did not stop him.” “He hathn’t killed Bonypart yet,” said John, recovering his vein of humour, as Mabel began to smile through her tears; “but I b’lieve he wool, if he gooeth on only half so well as he have begun. For my part, I’d soonder kill dree of un than sell out in a bad market, I know. But here, you can take it, and read all about un. Lor’ bless me, wherever have I put the papper?” “Now do be quick, John, for once in your life. Dear John, do try to be quick, now.” “Strornary gallantry of a young hofficer! Could have sworn that it were in my breeches-pocket. I always thought ‘gallantry’ meant something bad. A running after strange women, and that.” “Oh no, John--oh no, John; it never does. How can you think such dreadful things? but how long are you going to be, John?”