“Did I then?” repeated Letty innocently. “Well, there’s other Sundays, and I bet Mr. Frewin shall walk with me one on ’em.” “Done with you for a pair o’ gloves,” cried the miller, laughing, “for I bet he won’t!” And Letty flushed and demurred, for such a precise arrangement as this had not occurred to her; but the girls were delighted and wouldn’t let her refuse. “They’ll be sure to be a nice pair, Letty,” whispered they. And Letty thought so too, and since she was so very, very sure to succeed, it seemed a pity to forego both the gift and the glory of winning it. “All right then,” said she at last, blushing still and smiling; “when ’ave it got to be?” “Sunday come three weeks,” declared he; but the other girls meant to see fair play, and vowed that this was far, very far from it. “Well, if a woman can’t make a fool of a man in three weeks, she ain’t goin’ to do it at all,” answered he. “Ye did for me in one!” There was a roar at this, and at that very moment the cause of all this commotion strode back again down the road passing the bridge by on the left this time, with his bundle of sorted letters in his right hand and his bag slung in front of him. He might very well have heard the miller’s last words, for they had been spoken in a loud voice, but his face was inscrutable, though the scowl upon it had deepened momentarily. “Well,” added the miller, as he watched him pass, “I’ll grant ye you’ve a tough job, so we’ll say Sunday come four weeks. That’ll throw ye in Bank ’Oliday, and I’m sure that ought to count double.” The girls giggled afresh as the miller went indoors. “My, what a lark, Letty,” said one. “I wish it was me. My best gloves ain’t fit to be seen. But I don’t suppose ye’ll get ’em.” And then they all parted and ran off to their various jobs, and left Letty, with the only one who lived up her way, to climb the village street to the old farm. “I wish now as I ’adn’t done it,” sighed the girl half seriously. But the other rallied and encouraged her, envying her secretly between whiles. The farm stood above the village, on a common that was breezy when the valley lay languid in the heat; cherry and plum-trees were a-bloom in the orchard, and daffodils along the sides of the straight brick-paved walk that led from the gate to the old-fashioned porch. As Letty stood in that porch the very self-same evening drying her plump brown arms on a cloth after washing up the tea-things, the postman stopped at the gate and began looking through the letters in his left hand. The girl hung down her head and blushed; she was resolved, but she had not thought she would have to begin so soon; she was not ready.