"Oh, no doubt; but hasn't thee overlooked one thing?"
"That Martha should first know thy mind towards her."
It was true, he had overlooked that important fact, and the suggestion came to him very like an attack of cramp. He laughed, however, took out a red silk handkerchief, and tried to wipe a little eagerness into his face.
"No, Doctor!" he exclaimed, "not forgot, only keeping the best for the last. I wasn't sure but you might want to speak to her yourself, first; but she knows, doesn't she?"
"Not to my direct knowledge; and I wouldn't like to venture to speak in her name."
"Then, I'll--that is, you think I'd better have a talk with her. A little tough, at my time of life, ha! ha!--but faint heart never won fair lady; and I hadn't thought of going that far to-day, though of course, I'm anxious,--been in my thoughts so long,--and perhaps--perhaps"--
"I'll tell thee," said the Doctor, seeming not to notice Barton's visible embarrassment, which he found very natural; "do thee come up again next First-day afternoon prepared to speak thy mind. I will give Martha a hint of thy purpose beforehand, but only a hint, mind thee; the girl has a smart head of her own, and thee'll come on faster with her if thee pleads thy own cause with thy own mouth."
"Yes, I'll come then!" cried Barton, so relieved at his present escape that his relief took the expression of joy. Dr. Deane was a fair judge of character; he knew all of Alfred Barton's prominent traits, and imagined that he was now reading him like an open book; but it was like reading one of those Latin sentences which, to the ear, are made up of English words. The signs were all correct, only they belonged to another language.
The heavy wooer shortly took his departure. While on the return path, he caught sight of Miss Betsy Lavender's beaver, bobbing along behind the pickets of the hill-fence, and, rather than encounter its wearer in his present mood, he stole into the shelter of one of the cross-hedges, and made his way into the timbered bottom below.
Little did Dr. Deane suspect the nature of the conversation which had that morning been held in his daughter's room, between herself and Betsy Lavender.
When the latter returned from her interview with Gilbert Potter, the previous evening, she found the Doctor already arrived. Mark came home at supper-time, and the evening was so prolonged by his rattling tongue that no room was left for any confidential talk with Martha, although Miss Betsy felt that something ought to be said, and it properly fell to her lot to broach the delicate subject.