She already liked Sol very much; she would probably like him more when she had time and opportunity to study his character, but to be pressed thus to come to a definite decision at so short a notice—it was unfair—it was cruel! Above all to be forced to own straight out that she had no other lover—how could she bring herself to make such a humiliating confession? Very little did Sally sleep that night, and when she looked up in the morning from her untasted breakfast and announced that she had a headache, she was sufficiently pale to alarm her grandmother. “I don’t think I can ever go joggin’ off in that wold cart to-day,” continued Sally, dismally. “Couldn’t you go, grammer, for once? ’Tis a lovely day, look see, an’ there bain’t so much doin’ of a Tuesday.” “Well, to be sure,” grumbled the old woman, “’tis a pretty notion. What’s to become o’ the wash if I’m to go a-traipsin’ round the country wi’ the cart?” “Oh, I’ll manage the wash!” cried Sally, eagerly. “The steam ’ull do me good, I think. ’Tis the neuralgy what be a-troublin’ of I. I’ll finish the washin’, an’ get on wi’ the ironin’, if ye’ll let me, grammer?” Mrs Roberts assented, after much murmuring and a good deal of sarcastic comment on the “neshness” of the rising generation. There was never no talk of newralgy or oldralgy neither when she was a maid, she said, an’ she was sure she didn’t know what the world was a-comin’ to. Nevertheless she duly started off, encasing her spare figure in Sally’s warm jacket, and covering her head with an old sailor hat which had once belonged to the girl. Sally, indeed, had pressed these articles upon her grandmother with an exuberance of affection which had somewhat mollified that old lady, and stood leaning against the door-post as Diamond and the van jogged out of sight. Her face was pink enough to denote that the “newralgy” was not in a very acute stage, and all at once she burst into a fit of laughter, and clapped her hands. It was darker even than usual when Mrs Roberts, much exhausted after her round, set forth on her return journey. She drew back as far as possible into the shelter of the “shed,” and let the reins drop loosely over Diamond’s back as he crawled slowly up the stony lane so often mentioned. Presently, to her great surprise, a figure leaped out from the shelter of the bank, and accosted her. “I thought you was never comin’!” cried a man’s voice. Grammer Roberts checked the exclamation which rose to her lips, and flattened herself yet more against the side of the hood, but she made no audible remark. To herself, however, she observed: “Ho! ho! Miss Sally.” Diamond continued his progress as though nothing unusual had happened, and the newcomer paced beside him. “There’s no use your holding your tongue, my dear,” he continued, after a pause, “because I’m going to have an answer, one way or another.” “A answer!” commented Mrs Roberts to herself. “He’ve a-been makin’ the maid a offer.”