“Halloa, Kit my lad!” cried Uncle Corny, when he came to dinner, and my darling was gone with her sketch half done, and I had only dared to hover near her. “Sweetheart been here, they tell me. What a leary chap you are! When I heard Cap’en was gone to Town, I thought it was all over. I’ve been wanting you up at packing-shed, for the last three hours. No more good work left in you. That’s what come of sweet hearting.” “Uncle Corny, if you must be vulgar, because you have no proper sense of things, the least you can do is not to holloa, as if you were driving a truck of rags and bones.” “Hoity, toity! Here’s a go! One would think there had been no courting done, since Adam and Eve, till your time. Too hot to hold—that’s my opinion. And as for rags and bones, young fellow, that’s just about what it will come to. The girl won’t have sixpence, by what I hear; though there’s lots of tin in the family. I know a deal more than you do about them. Don’t pop the question without my leave.” What a way to put it! CHAPTER XII. AN EMPTY PILE. ALTHOUGH no token had passed between us, and no currency been set up, of that universal interchange, which my Uncle and Tabby termed “courting,” I felt a very large hope now, that the goods I had to offer,—quiet as they were, and solid, without any spangle—were on their way to be considered, and might be regarded kindly. For while I knew how poor I was, in all the more graceful attributes, and little gifted with showy powers of discourse, or the great world’s glitter, void moreover of that noble cash which covers every other fault, yet my self-respect and manhood told me that I was above contempt. Haughty maidens might, according to their lights, look down on me; let them do so, it would never hurt me; I desired no haughtiness. That which had taken my heart, and led it, with no loss to its own value, was sweetness, gentleness, loving-kindness, tender sense of woman’s nature, and the joy of finding strength in man. For though I am not the one to say it, I knew that I was no weakling, either in body, or in mind. Slow of wit I had always been, and capable only of enjoying the greater gifts of others; but as I plodded on through life, I found it more and more the truth, that this is the better part to have. I enjoy my laugh tenfold, because it is a thing I could never have made for myself. But for a long time yet to come, there was not much laughter before me. One of the many griefs of love is, that it stops the pores of humour, and keeps a man clogged with earnestness. At the same time, he becomes the Guy, and butt for all the old jokes that can be discharged by clumsy fellows below contempt. None of these hit him, to any good purpose, because he is ever so far above them; but even the smell of their powder is nasty, as a whiff across his incense.