"Why, Sam, how can you be so fast? I’ve never even said I liked ’ee; and it is all your own doing, coming after me.”
“Still, it is nonsense to say I am not to have a try at you, like the rest.” He stooped to kiss her a farewell, for they had reached her mother’s door,
“No, Sam; you sha’n’t !” she cried, putting her hand over his mouth. “You ought to be more serious on such a night as this.” And she bade him adieu without allowing him to kiss her or to come indoors,
The vicar just left a widower was at this time a man about forty years of age, of good family, and childless. He had led a secluded existence in this college living, partly because there were no resident landowners; and his loss now intensified hia habit of withdrawal from outward observation. He was still less seen than heretofore, kept himself still less in time with the rhythm and racket of the movements called progress in the world without, For many months after his wife’s decease the economy of his household remained as before; the cook, the house-maid, the parlor-maid, and the man out-of-doors performed their duties or left them undone, just as nature prompted them—the vicar knew not which. It was then represented to him that his servants seemed to have nothing to do in his small family of one. He was struck with the truth of this representation, and decided to cut down his establishment. But he was forestalled by Sophy, the parlor-maid, who said one evening that she wished to leave him.
“ And why ?” said the parson.
“Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him, sir.”
"Well—do you want to marry ?”
“Not much, But it would be a home for me, And we have heard that one of us will have to leave.”
A day or two after she said: “I don’t want to