He answered, "Dear Marian," and would have kissed her cheek, but she
started up with a little cry, saying, "By'r lay'kin! there was a
honey-bee tangled in my locks."
And when he had sought for the bee to kill it with his hat, but could
not find it, they did seat themselves again, he laughing and saying that
"the bee was a bee o' much discretion and wondrous good taste."
That night when I crept to my little ladies to see that all was quiet,
I, pausing in the door-way, did note them as they lay--my little lady
with her head on Mistress Marian's breast, and a smile on her lips, and
Mistress Marian with her arms wrapped close about her, and her dark hair
swept out over the pillow, and thence to the floor, like a stream o'
water that reflects a black cloud, but her eyes wide open, looking
straight forward, as though at a ghost. And I stole off and sobbed
myself to sleep, but not before I had awakened Jock, who did grunt,
after the uncourteous, pig-like manner of a suddenly wakened man,
be-thump his pillow as though 't had been an anvil, and in turning over,
twist the bedclothes half off of me, so that what with the cold (it
being then the fall o' th' year), and what with my distress, I slept but
uneasily.
And the next thing I knew o' th' matter, there was a wedding, and my
little lady wedded to Lord Ernle, and Mistress Marian her bridemaid.
Surely if the good God e'er sent happiness on earth, He did send it to
my little lady and to his lordship. 'Twas at this time that Sir Rowland
asked Mistress Marian to be his spouse. And 'twas even i' th' same spot
where Lord Ernle had discovered his love for my little lady, that he
asked her.
Again it was as though some one had smitten her--her face deadly white
and the red line across her brow. She put out one hand to keep him from
her, and let it rest on his shoulder, and she said, "Rowland, I love
thee well, but no man will ever call me wife."