I'm doubting whether to this
day he knows whether what he was eating was fish, flesh, or fowl.
Shall I tell you how I managed?"
But Ruth said she would rather hear about Sally's sweethearts;
much to the disappointment of the latter, who considered the
dinner by far the greatest achievement.
"Well, you see, I don't know as I should call them sweethearts;
for excepting John Rawson, who was shut up in a mad-house the
next week, I never had what you may call a downright offer of
marriage but once. But I had once; and so I may say I had a
sweetheart. I was beginning to be afeard though, for one likes to
be axed; that's but civility; and I remember, after I had turned
forty, and afore Jeremiah Dixon had spoken, I began to think John
Rawson had perhaps not been so very mad, and that I'd done ill to
lightly his offer, as a madman's, if it was to be the only one I
was ever to have; I don't mean as I'd have had him, but I
thought, if it was to come o'er again, I'd speak respectful of
him to folk, and say it were only his way to go about on
all-fours, but that he was a sensible man in most things. However
I'd had my laugh, and so had others, at my crazy lover, and it
was late now to set him up as a Solomon. However, I thought it
would be no bad thing to be tried again; but I little thought the
trial would come when it did. You see, Saturday night is a
leisure night in counting-houses and such-like places, while it's
the busiest of all for servants.
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