It was evident by the way she looked up at him now that she was in no mood to say No. But, before surrendering to the happily inevitable, she must make her protest. ‘Tis nonsense, Mr Bailey. I’m too old for marrying and such. You’d better go find a young woman to wed.’
‘That’s what I’m doing this minute, ma’am,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘That’s what I’m doing and that’s what I’ve done. You’re all the young woman I want. I could have fathered you pretty near, if I’d been quick. You’ll be foolish, I’ll ’low, to take an old fellow like me, a young woman in your prime as you are, and I’m not saying I deserve you. But don’t talk to me of younger women, for if you’ll not have me I’ll have none.’
He gazed at her crossly: so crossly that she was provoked to mischief. ‘Won’t you? Don’t be in haste, Mr Bailey. There’s many a likely one that ud have you. My darter Patience now. She’s but turned farty a month since. She’d make a good wife, I bluv.’
She was laughing at him, and Mr Bailey knew that there is but one answer to that. So he bent over her and took her by surprise (or so he flattered himself) and gave her a hearty kiss. ‘Jump up, my dear, and let me sit down.’ He lifted her out of her chair, sat himself in it, and pulled her on to his knees. ‘Now I’ll have no more fandangle from you, mistus!’ said Mr Bailey, holding her very tight.
She nestled comfortably against him. ‘What a stonishment twill be for Patience,’ she murmured, half to herself. ‘Her own mother and nigh sixty. Tis a shame for you, and so they’ll all say. But there be one good thing—Patience must have my shop, but I’ll bring ee a well-filled stocking, Mr Bailey.’
‘I hope and trust,’ said Mr Bailey naughtily, ‘that you’ll bring me two, my dear.’
‘Mercy, what a style to talk!’ she protested. ‘Tis a stockingful of money I do mean.’
‘But I’ll ’low you’ve a fine womanly pair of legs,’ he cried, dropping joyously into the vernacular. ‘And them’s all I look to find in stockings, mistus.’
She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked down at him with mischievous solemnity, pretending to be offended by his freedom. The next moment they were laughing together; and when they had enjoyed their joke to the full he announced his resolve that they should be church-cried the very next Sunday. ‘What d’ye say to that?’
She nodded; her eyes shone; her cheeks marvellously dimpled.
‘Why, you’re nothing but a bit of a girl after all.’ cried Mr Bailey in delight. And with a smile that matched her own, in its bantering tenderness, ‘I’d haply do better to look round for a grown woman,’ he added.