He bought a very handsome gold watch and chain, and laid it down upon a white seat--the white seat which still exists--in the garden at Earlham.

'If Betsy takes up that watch,' he said, 'it is a sign that she accepts me: if she does not take it up by a particular hour, it will show that I must leave Earlham.' The six sisters concealed themselves in six laurel-bushes in different parts of the grounds to watch.

One can imagine their intense curiosity and anxiety.

At last the tall, graceful Betsy, her flaxen hair now hidden under a Quaker cap, shyly emerged upon the gravel walk.

She seemed scarcely conscious of her surroundings, as if, 'on the wings of prayer, she was being wafted into the unseen.' But she reached the garden seat, and there, in the sunshine, lay the glittering new watch.