"At times, sir--thanking you kindly; it ain't many suvrings as comes my
way--though I hate the sight on it, I do. I'd like to stave a hole in
the bottom of that there cranky concern; it ain't safe, and that's the
fact. There'll be another accent out of it one of these fine days and
no coming to next time. But, Lord bless you, it's her way of pleasuring
herself. She's a queer un is Miss Beatrice, and she gets queerer and
queerer, what with their being so tight screwed up at the Vicarage, no
tithes and that, and one thing and another. Not but what I'm thinking,
sir," he added in a portentous whisper, "as the squire has got summut to
do with it. He's a courting of her, he is; he's as hard after her as a
dog fish after a stray herring, and why she can't just say yes and marry
him I'm sure I don't know."
"Perhaps she doesn't like him," said Geoffrey coldly.
"May be, sir, may be; maids all have their fancies, in whatsoever walk
o' life it has pleased God to stick 'em, but it's a wonderful pity, it
is. He ain't no great shakes, he ain't, but he's a sound man--no girl
can't want a sounder--lived quiet all his days you see, sir, and what's
more he's got the money, and money's tight up at the Vicarage, sir.
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