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John turned to Sarah and sighed and shook his head while he tickled her hand with a straw from the sheaf. She did not withdraw it, so he came a little nearer and put the straw up her arm; then followed it with two of his own fingers and felt her moist skin under them.

She laughed lazily, and the music fired his heart and sluggish tongue.

“Oh, God, Sally, how long be I to dance upon your beck and call for nought? How long be I to bide this way while you hang back?”

“Us couldn’t be gerter friends.”

“Ess fay, but us could. Wheer do friendship lead to ’twixt men an’ women? Dost hear? I knaw you’m butivul to see, an’ purtiest gal in Postbridge an’ such like; an’ I knaw a man o’ my fortune an’ poor brain power’s got no right—an’ yet, though ’tis bowldacious so to do, I ban’t built to keep away from ’e. I peek an’ pine an’ dwindle for ’e, I do.”

“‘Dwindle,’ dear heart! Wheer’s the signs of that? You’m stronger an’ taller an’ better’n any man on East Dart.”

“Did ’e say ‘better,’ Sally? Did ’e mean it? ’Tis a year since I fust axed ’e, serious as a man, an’ a dozen times ’twixt then an’ now I’ve axed again. I swear I thought as I’d seen love light in them misty eyes of thine, else I’d have troubled ’e less often. But—but—”