The suitor favoured by Mrs. Lovejoy was a young physician at Maidstone, Dr. Daniel Calvert, a man of good birth and connections, and having prospects of good fortune. The Grower, on the other hand, had now found out the very son-in-law he wanted--Elias Jenkins, a steady young fellow, the son of a maltster at Sevenoaks, who had bought all the barley of Old Applewood farm for forty years and upwards. Elias was terribly smitten with Mabel, and suddenly found quite a vigorous joy in the planting and pruning of fruit-trees, and rode over almost every day, throughout both March and April, to take lessons, as he said, in grafting and training pears, and planting cherries, and various other branches of the gentle craft of gardening. Of course the Grower could do no less than offer him dinner, at every visit, in spite of Mrs. Lovejoy’s frowns; and Elias, with a smiling face and blushing cheeks, would bring his chair as close as he could to Mabel’s, and do his best in a hearty way to make himself agreeable. And in this he succeeded so far, that his angel did not in the least dislike him; but to think of him twice, after Hilary, was such an insult to all intelligence! The maiden would have liked the maltster a great deal better than she did, if only he would have dropped his practice of “popping the question” before he left every Saturday afternoon. But he knew that Sunday is a dangerous day; and as he could not well come grafting then, he thought it safer to keep a place in her thoughts until the Monday. “Try her again, lad,” the Grower used to say. “Odds, bobs, my boy, don’t run away from her. Young gals must be watched for, and caught on the hop. If they won’t say ‘yes’ before dinner, have at them again in the afternoon, and get them into the meadows, and then go on again after supper-time. Some take the courting kindest of a morning, and some at meal-time, and some by the moonlight.” “Well, sir, I have tried her in all sorts of ways, and she won’t say ‘yes’ to one of them. I begin to be tired of Saturdays now. I have a great mind to try of a Friday.” “Ay!” cried the Grower, looking at him, as the author of a great discovery. “Sure enough now, try on Fridays--market-day, as I am a man!” “Well now, to think of that!” said Elias; “what a fool I must have been, to keep on so with Saturday! The mistress goes against me, I know; and that always tells up with the maidens, but I must have something settled, squire, before next malting season.” “You shall, you shall indeed, my lad; you may take my word for it. That only stands to reason. Shilly-shally is a game I hate; and no daughter of mine shall play at it. But I blame you more than her, my boy. You don’t know how to manage them. Take them by the horns. There is nothing like taking them by the horns, you know.”