"I am going home; and, if you are not there by to-morrow at noon"-- She said no more, but looked a great deal.

Then she departed, and refused him her hand at parting.

"We will see about that by and by," said she.
At noon my lord came down to the farm, and, unfortunately for Phoebe, played the penitent so skilfully for about a month, that she forgave him, and loved him all the more for having so nearly parted with him.
Her peace was not to endure long.

He was detected in an intrigue in the very village.
The insult struck so home that Phoebe herself, to her parents' satisfaction, ordered him out of the house at once.
But, when he was gone, she had fits of weeping, and could settle to nothing for a long time.
Months had elapsed, and she was getting a sort of dull tranquillity, when, one evening, taking a walk she had often with him, and mourning her solitude and wasted affection, he waylaid her, and clung to her knees, and shed crocodile tears on her hands, and, after a long resistance, violent at first, but fainter and fainter, got her in his power again, and that so completely that she met him several times by night, being ashamed to be seen with him in those parts by day.
This ended in fresh promises of marriage, and in a constant correspondence by letter.

This pest knew exactly how to talk to a woman, and how to write to one.