Please, dear mamma." She took a stool, and sat at her mother's
feet; and then she began to turn the wedding-ring on Mrs. Browne's hand,
looking down and never speaking, till the latter became impatient.
"What is if you have got to say, child? Do make haste, for I want to go
up-stairs."
With a great jerk of resolution, Maggie said:
"Mamma, Frank Buxton has asked me to marry him."
She hid her face in her mother's lap for an instant; and then she lifted it
up, as brimful of the light of happiness as is the cup of a water-lily of
the sun's radiance.
"Maggie--you don't say so," said her mother, half incredulously. "It can't
be, for he's at Cambridge, and it's not post-day. What do you mean?"
"He came this morning, mother, when I was down at the well; and we fixed
that I was to speak to you; and he asked if he might come again for tea."
"Dear! dear! and the milk all gone sour? We should have had milk of our
own, if Edward had not persuaded me against buying another cow."
"I don't think Mr. Buxton will mind it much," said Maggie, dimpling up, as
she remembered, half unconsciously, how little he had seemed to care for
anything but herself.
"Why, what a thing it is for you!" said Mrs. Browne, quite roused up from
her languor and her head-ache. "Everybody said he was engaged to Miss
Erminia. Are you quite sure you made no mistake, child? What did he say?
Young men are so fond of making fine speeches; and young women are so silly
in fancying they mean something.
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