“Did you tell Weaver I was hare-shotten?”
“No, no, my dear! What for should I do that?”
“Only he met be thinking of me a bit, seeing you said such things, and
then if he met me ever—”
“Well, my dear, if he met you, and he’s the man I think him, he’d be
bound to like you right well,” says Mother roundly.
When I’d tucked her in, she catched my hand.
“Prue, should you care if he’d got but one leg, or one arm, or was all
pitted with the smallpox?”
“Care, Mother?” I cried out all in a minute and never thinking, “of
course I shouldna care. I should love un the more for it!”
“I knowed you did, my dear,” says Mother, very contented. “I knowed you
loved the man. And I’m right glad of it. Now, dunna you hide from him,
Prue. Be well plucked and risk all, like a good player in the game of
Costly Colours.”
“No, no! Never will I. Oh, Mother, it was unkind in you to catch me like
that!”
“I only wanted to know, Prue. I be getting ancient and old, and the time
draws nigh when life’ll be a burden. I’d lief know as there was good in
store for the best girl ever.”
She looked out and away through the little moony window, with the dark
round blots that were red roses pressed on the panes, and the silver sky
dim, and not starry, but very kind-seeming, and she seemed to be
listening to summat. Then she said—
“I do believe all shall be well with you, Prue. It’s come to my heart as
soft as dew, and as sweet as a red rose, that you’ll get love as well as
give it. After my time, though, after my time. But no matter for that,
so I do know it’s to come.”