You see, Miss Bassett had long been tokened to William, and if he'd
objected, it must have put her in a very awkward position with the promise
to a dead woman pulling one way and her duty to a live lover pulling the
other. But it happened that William White was a very good friend to Jonas,
like everybody else, and he didn't see no good reason why for his
sweetheart shouldn't lend a hand at such a sorrowful time.
Moreover, there was a bit of money in it, and Milly's William happened to
be a man whose opinions and principles had never been known to stand
between him and a shilling. So when Jonas insisted on paying Milly Bassett
ten bob a week over and above her keep--all clear profit--William raised
no objection whatever. He weren't a jealous man--quite the contrary--and
his engagement to marry Milly weren't an affair of yesterday. In fact, at
this time, they'd been contracted a good two years, and though the man
felt quite willing to wed when ever Milly was minded to, she'd got her
ideas and she'd made it clear from the very start that not until her
intended could show her four pound a week would she take the step.
And William White, though a good horseman and a champion with the plough
and well thought upon by Farmer Northway, could not yet rise to that
figure, though he went in hope that it might happen. He'd tried round
about on the farms to better his wages, for he was amazing fond of money,
but up to the present nobody seemed to think William was worth more than
three pound ten, or three pound with a cottage.
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