I couldn't help hopin'; an' now, when I come to ye so, an' tell ye jest how the land lays, ye git rampageous, or tell me I'm jokin'.

'Twon't be no joke if Jim Fenton goes away from this house feelin' that the only woman he ever seen as he thought was wuth a row o' pins feels herself better nor he is." Miss Butterworth cast down her eyes, and trotted her knees nervously.
She felt that Jim was really in earnest--that he thoroughly respected her, and that behind his rough exterior there was as true a man as she had ever seen; but the life to which he would introduce her, the gossip to which she would be subjected by any intimate connection with him, and the uprooting of the active social life into which the routine of her daily labor led her, would be a great hardship.

Then there was another consideration which weighed heavily with her.

In her room were the memorials of an early affection and the disappointment of a life.
"Mr.Fenton," she said, looking up-- "Jest call me Jim." "Well, Jim--" and Miss Butterworth smiled through tearful eyes--"I must tell you that I was once engaged to be married." "Sho! You don't say!" "Yes, and I had everything ready." "Now, you don't tell me!" "Yes, and the only man I ever loved died--died a week before the day we had set." "It must have purty near finished ye off." "Yes, I should have been glad to die myself." "Well, now, Miss Butterworth, if ye s'pose that Jim Fenton wouldn't bring that man to life if he could, and go to your weddin' singin' hallelujer, you must think he's meaner nor a rat.

But ye know he's dead, an' ye never can see him no more.