Betsey turned and looked at him with opening eyes, and met a steadfast gaze more bewildering still, which made her drop them again, and look away. "Think? I think it sounds brave in you to speak like that. A man should never lose heart!"
"But it's yourself, I mean. Would you like it yourself?"
"If I were a man, that's how I'd like to be. I'd love to play the man so."
"But it ain't the _man_ you'd be expected to play. Miss Betsey. It would be the _wife_."
Betsey coloured and looked a little hurt. "It's too serious a subject to play with, Mr. Webb."
"But it ain't play. It's good, downright, honest earnest I mean."
"Could you bring yourself to marry a fellow who has lost his money, and is hard up?"
"I don't know, Mr. Webb," she laughed uncomfortably, and a little inclined to take offence at such a catechism being pressed on her, while she sat helpless in the hurrying "trap." "It would depend altogether on who the 'fellow' was."
"It's me! Miss Betsey. Will you take me? I'm no great match for any girl now, I know that; but _will_ you take me?"
"I don't like foolin' on such subjects, Mr. Webb; and it wasn't gentleman-like of you to bring me away in your buggy to talk like this." Her face was scarlet, as she said it, and looked in his; but there was no bantering smile there,--and a catch came in her throat, which sent the blood throbbing down to her finger-tips, as the idea crossed her mind that the man was in earnest. In that case, however, he would speak again, so she said no more.
"But this ain't foolin'. Miss Betsey, and I don't know what right you have to accuse me of sich. Did any one ever know me, man or boy, to tell a lie? I ask you plainly, Betsey Bunce, will you marry me?"
"Oh, laws! Joe Webb--I never--let me out here! I never--oh! you've took me all of a heap. Stop the buggy."
Joe drew rein, and stopped the equipage in the middle of the road, just where the shadow of a tall poplar by the wayside would shelter them from the sun; and there he sat, looking hot about the temples, and trying to settle his eyes on the tips of his horse's ears, because these could not return the look, while he dared not turn elsewhere for fear a mocking glance should meet him and complete his discomfiture, as he sat there awaiting his answer, feeling like a fool who has surrendered his shoulders to the smiters--a trapped animal awaiting the arrival of the hunters--the man who has put it in a girl's power to say she refused him. It was a moment of dread and suspense for Joe.