I could not fancy to marry her if there was
not another woman in the world."

Mrs. Harland sighed deeply, and plied
her knitting-pins fast; John continued to
hover about her, scarcely satisfied to act
against her counsel, yet fully bent on getting
Lina Fernie for his wife.

"I wasn't a beauty, John, as well you may
see," said the mother, with a wistful smile;
"yet your father fancied me, and I don't
think he ever regretted his choice.  I was a
good useful article, he used to say."

"You're a deal better like than Libbie
Frost, now; and, mother, there'd be you to
put Lina in the way of things, you know,"
he insinuated.

"She's not one that will take kindly to
teaching; but I wish you would not talk to
me about her any more.  If your heart's set
on her, I know you over well to expect to see
you change it."

John acknowledged that his heart was
set on Lina, and that a miserable man he
would be that day he thought she looked
coldly on him; and finding his mother really
indisposed to indulge him with any further
conversation on the subject, he strolled down
the neat little garden into the village street,
and turned naturally towards Lina's cottage.

Lina was standing on her doorstep, having
a gossip with a neighbour; she haunted the
door-step very much, and never scrupled
to hold anybody in talk, man, woman, or
child, young or old, rich or poor, friend or
stranger, who passed by that way.  She had
not an atom of shyness.  Indeed, John's
mother was much more correct in her estimate
of the village belle than was John
himself.  Lina was very pretty, very; nobody
could gainsay that.  Her complexion was of
creamy fairness, with a brilliant but delicate
bloom; her hair was bright golden, her
figure was short, but plump.  Lina knew she
was a beauty, and liked other people to know
it, too. She had no objection to the
assiduities of the handsome young mason.
Indeed, the longer her train of admirers, the
better Lina liked it; so when she saw him
coming towards the cottage, she bridled her
white neck, and looked as captivatingly
unconscious of him as ever she could—a needless
wile, for poor John was already prostrated
by the power of her charms, and
perfectly incapable of a single reasonable
reflection with regard to her.

As he approached, Meggie Sanders, the
other gossip, drew off, and Lina invited John
into the house.  He accepted the courtesy
gratefully; for there was only the deaf old
grandmother sitting by the fire, and she
would take no heed to their conversation.
John had not at any time a skilful tongue at
common-place chat, and his present absorbing
feelings for Lina made him even less fluent
than usual—a matter of which the girl was
clearly sensible; but, by-and-by, he got one
of Lina's nice little hands in his hard brown
ones, and after remarking that it was as
white as a lady's, he said, with a glowing
blush on his honest face:

"Lina, I want you to give it to me?"

"Give you my hand, John!  Why what
in the world could you do with it?" asked
she, feigning not to understand him.

"I mean, Lina, will you be my wife?  Do
you like me well enough?"

"Why, John, I never so much as thought
about you!"

"But will you try to think about me?  O,
Lina, I think of you night and day, and get
no peace for thinking of you!"

Lina laughed merrily, and tried to pull
away her hand; but John held it fast all the
same, and would not let it go until she
answered him.

"I don't want to be married, John," said
she, half pettishly; "and besides, I know
your mother is cross, and does not like me.
She thinks that fright Libbie Frost would
suit you better."

"But I don't think so, Lina; and so, what
does it matter?  You would soon get round
my mother, for she is real good.  She scarcely
knows you."

"Yes, she does, and she always looks at
me as if she were jealous about you,—and
I'm sure she needn't be."

"Don't say that, Lina, don't.  I'd rather
she was ever so jealous than that you should
not care for me.  Do you care for me, Lina,
darling—"

"Just a little bit; about as much as
that," and the rural coquette measured
off the first joint of her little finger as the
amount of her affection for the ardent young
mason.

"It's a beginning, Lina.  It will be the
whole hand soon;" and John looked not
dissatisfied.

"Don't be over sure, John.  Didn't I tell
you I'd no thoughts of marrying yet?  O,
it's dull, ever so dull to get married when
one's young!" and the lively maiden lifted
up her hands in horrified deprecation of such
a weariful fate.  John's countenance fell.

"But not if you liked me, Lina,?"
insinuated he, imprisoning the little hand
again; "don't be unkind."

"I don't like you much, John, you know—
you are over old for me: I do believe you're
thirty, at least?"

"Nay, Lina, I'm not so old as that neither.
I'm only eight-and-twenty," replied John,
earnestly.

"And I'm eighteen—there's ten years
between us.  No, no, John; you're too old,
you're too old!"  and Mistress Lina shook
her head, and looked seriously bewildering
out of her blue eyes.

"I always knew you were a famous scholar,
Lina, but I did not think you'd learnt ciphering
either;" said John, with feigned surprise.
"A clever little wife like you would be the
making of me, you would, indeed.  Why if I