§13

"Arthur, I want a word with you."

They were alone in the parlour, Ellen having been dispatched resentfully on an errand to Great Ansdore.

"About them wethers?"

"No—it's a different thing. Arthur, have you noticed that Ellen's sweet on you?"

Joanna's approach to a subject was ever direct, but this time she seemed to have taken the breath out of Arthur's body.

"Ellen ... sweet on me?" he gasped.

"Yes, you blind-eyed owl. I've seen it for a dunnamany weeks."

"But—Ellen? That liddle girl ud never care an onion for a dull, dry chap lik me."

"Reckon she would. You ain't such a bad chap, Arthur, though I could never bring myself to take you."

"Well, I must say I haven't noticed anything, or maybe I'd have spoken to you about it. I'm unaccountable sorry, Jo, and I'll do all I can to help you stop it."

"I'm not sure I want to stop it. I was thinking only to-day as it wouldn't be a bad plan if you married Ellen."

"But, Jo, I don't want to marry anybody but you."

"Reckon that's middling stupid of you, for I'll never marry you, Arthur Alce—never!"

"Then I don't want nobody."

"Oh, yes, you do. You'll be a fool if you don't marry and get a wife to look after you and your house, which has wanted new window-blinds this eighteen month. You can't have me, so you may as well have Ellen—she's next best to me, I reckon, and she's middling sweet on you."

"Ellen's a dear liddle thing, as I've always said against them that said otherwise—but I've never thought of marrying her, and reckon she don't want to marry me, she'd sooner marry a stout young Southland or young Vine."

"She ain't going to marry any young Vine. When she marries I'll see she marries a steady, faithful, solid chap, and you're the best I know."

"It's kind of you to say it, but reckon it wouldn't be a good thing for me to marry one sister when I love the other."

"But you'll never get the other, not till the moon's cheese, so there's no sense in vrothering about that. And I want Ellen to marry you, Arthur, since she's after you. I never meant her to marry yet awhiles, but reckon I can't make her happy at home—I've tried and I can't—so you may as well try."

"It ud be difficult to make Ellen happy—she's a queer liddle dentical thing."

"I know, but marriage is a wonderful soberer-down. She'll be happy once she gets a man and a house of her own."

"I'm not so sure. Anyways I'm not the man for her. She should ought to marry a gentleman."

"Well, there ain't none for her to marry, nor likely to be none. She'll go sour if she has to stand ... and she wants you, Arthur. I wouldn't be asking you this if I hadn't seen she wanted you, and seen too as the best thing as could happen to her would be for her to marry you."

"I'm sure she'll never take me."

"You can but ask her."

"She'll say 'No.'"

"Reckon she won't—but if she does, there'll be no harm in asking her."

"You queer me, Jo—it seems a foolish thing to marry Ellen when I want to marry you."

"But I tell you, you can never marry me. You're a stupid man, Arthur, who won't see things as they are. You go hankering after whom you can't get, and all the time you might get someone who's hankering after you. It's a lamentable waste, I say, and I'll never be pleased if you don't ask Ellen. It ain't often I ask you to do anything to please me, and this is no hard thing. Ellen's a fine match—a pretty girl, and clever, and well-taught—she'll play the piano to your friends. And I'll see as she has a bit of money with her. You'll do well for yourself by taking her, and I tell you, Arthur, I'm sick and tired of your dangling after me."