"That’s what ’ee say, but hark to me, marry him I say ’ee shall and I have told him, he has my wishes!"
A defiant white face, with big glittering eyes faced the wrinkled, angry old face.
"Drownd myself I will gladly and willingly afore I marry he!"
"Go ’ee in!" said Mrs. Hanson. "A perilous bad maid ’ee be and ’shamed of ’ee I be, and asking myself I be all the time—Be this my son Garge’s child, or be she a changeling? For such temper no Hanson ever did hev yet—Go ’ee in, but mark this, marry him ’ee shall!"
"Mark this!" Betty cried. "Marry him I never will! I’ll drownd myself first! Aye and blithely and gaily—for I du hate and fear him more than any mortal man and they fingers o’ his that touched me—ugh! That touched me and—" And then suddenly she broke down in a passion of sobs and ran into the house.
Sir Josiah was performing his last friendly offices. Davenham had finished his part of the work and had done it, as the Baronet knew he would, with a complete and thorough knowledge and good taste.
Who, to look about one now, seeing those beautiful rooms with their exquisite furnishing, that garden, a thing of delight and perfect beauty, could reconcile it all with the desolate and derelict wilderness of a place it had been three short months before?
"I’d like that there Van Norden, or whatever his name is, to see it, I would!" Sir Josiah thought. "Hang me, I’d like him to take a stroll around now! Them Americans are smart and wonderful skilful, aye, and what’s more a fine nat’ral taste they’ve got, appreciating fine things and old things more than we do! I say all that and admit all that, but this here Van Norden, he couldn’t have beat what I’ve done in the time, he couldn’t! He’d own it, too, for I’ve yet to meet the American who wasn’t frank to admit the truth!"
Sir Josiah here was like a small king in great state. He was to interview potential servants, advertisements appeared in the London and the local papers, inviting cooks and housemaids, parlourmaids, footmen, grooms, scullery maids, still room maids and the like to present themselves at Homewood Manor on a certain day, when all their expenses would be paid by Sir Josiah Homewood, who would engage the most suitable persons. His own man Bletsoe was here to do honour to the occasion.