“Oh, that’s it, is it,” said Grace; “then why don’t he jolly well say so, then, instead of rolling up ‘primeval instincts’ to you and that kind o’ lingo?” Grace having by this tenderly gathered _Pearson on the Creed_, and having cunningly contrived to restore him to some semblance of his former unimpeachable respectability, rose from her knees, and returned to the attack. “Dimmy, do come from that door, there’s a nice old chap,” she said. “I’ll be _so_ good. I’m sure I’ll listen to you when I’ve told the boys. I’m simply dying to tell ’em. Dimmy, you brute! come from that door at once!” “Sit down,” said I, stretching my finger out in my laconic sternness. “If you don’t,” said she, “I’ll get _Hengstenberg’s Dissertations on the Genuineness and Authenticity of the Pentateuch_ to you. That’ll make you howl if it hits you, I’ll give you _my_ word. And it don’t matter if we do knock the stuffing out o’ that, ’cause it isn’t orthodox, you know.” “Why, a girl couldn’t even lift a name like that?” said I, to encourage her. “Oh, you don’t draw me,” said the experienced Grace. She had served an apprenticeship with four brothers. However, I was glad to find that the unhappy and distraught Grace had by this arrived at the conclusion that there was only one course open to her, if she was to be enabled to convey the burning news to the dining-room in a reasonable time. That one course was complete submission. Accordingly, after a terrible struggle, in which the native Eve, or perhaps the primeval instincts, within her were persuaded to lie down, she retired a few paces, leant against the table, sighed heart-rendingly, and then laid her mutinously twitching hands down by her sides as placidly as possible. “Fire away,” she said dismally; “I’ll listen.” “Thanks awf’ly,” said I; “so good of you to listen.” “Oh, but, Dimmy, you great beast!” she implored, “please do look nippy; I’m simply dying.” “Well, what I’ve got to say’s just this,” said I, and the courage I found wherewith to utter it came partly, I suppose, from the excitement of my late employments, and partly from the get-there-sometime Anglo-Saxon spirit that makes us all feel such wonderful fine fellows. “Grace, I want you to be my wife,” said I. “Oh, if that’s all your nodding, and winking, and reddening, and stuttering’s been about,” said Grace, with evident relief, “I’ll be your anything, so long as you’ll let me go immediately.” “You misunderstand me rather,” said I, nearing desperation. “’Pon my honour as a gentleman, I want you to be my wife.” “But the boys wouldn’t let me,” she said. “The boys!” I cried. “What the devil--no, I mean what the dickens have the boys got to do with it? Who are the boys, pray? Never heard of such a thing in my life.” “Well, you see, Dimmy, it’s like this, you see,” said Grace confidentially, but with her eye for ever wandering to the door. “Nothing under a county man’s their motto.” “You mean it’s yours,” said I indignantly.