And yet to do this surreptitiously, just as if she were ashamed of him, or as if there were something wrong in their being fond of one another, jarred upon Elizabeth’s honest nature.  She did not want to make a show of him, especially to her fellow-servants:  she had the true woman’s instinct of liking to keep her treasures all to herself; but she had also her sex’s natural yearning for sympathy in the great event of a woman’s life.  She would have liked to have somebody unto whom she could say, “Tom has asked me to marry him,” and who would have answered cordially, “It’s all right:  he is a good fellow:  you are sure to be happy.”

Not that she doubted this:  but it would have been an additional comfort to have a mother’s blessing, or a sister’s, or even a friend’s, upon this strange and sweet emotion which had come into her life.  So long as it was thus kept secret there seemed a certain incompleteness and unsanctity about even their happy love.

Tom did not comprehend this at all.  He only laughed at her for feeling so “nesh” (that means tender, sensitive—­but the word is almost unexplainable to other than Stowbury ears) on the subject.  He liked the romance and excitement of secret courtship—­men often do; rarely women, unless there is something in them not quite right, not entirely womanly.

But Tom was very considerate, and though he called it “silly,” and took a little fit of crossness on the occasion, he allowed Elizabeth to write to mother about him, and consented that on her next holiday she should go to Richmond, in order to speak to Miss Hilary on the same subject, and ask her also to write to Mrs. Hand, stating how good and clever Tom was, and how exceedingly happy was Tom’s Elizabeth.

“And won’t you come and fetch me, Tom?” asked she, shyly.  “I am sure Miss Hilary would not object, nor Miss Leaf neither.”

Tom, protested he did not care two straws whether they objected or not; he was a man of twenty, in a good trade—­he had lately gone back to the printing, and being a clever workman, earned capital wages.  He had a right to choose whom he liked, and marry when he pleased.  If Elizabeth didn’t care for him, she might leave him alone.

“Oh, Tom!” was all she answered, with a strange gentleness that no one could have believed would ever have come into the manner of South Sea Islander.  And quitting the subject then, she afterward persuaded him, and not for the first time, into consenting to what she thought right.  There is something rather touching in a servant’s holiday.  It comes so seldom.  She must count on it for so long beforehand, and remember it for so long afterward.  This present writer owns to a strong sympathy with the holiday-makers on the grand gala-days of the English calendar.  It is a pleasure to watch the innumerable groups of family folk, little, children, and prentice lands.

    —­“Dressed in all their best,
    To walk abroad with Sally.”