Dangling blunts the edge of ardor; therefore I soon found myself noticing beauty elsewhere and discovered none that could be compared with that of Betty Pickering of the Old Swan.  It is true she was, in a sense, a barmaid, and equally true that I had no thought of marrying her.  Still it was significant even at that early time that my mind reverted to the fact that Edward Hyde, Lord Chancellor of England and Earl of Clarendon, had married an innkeeper’s widow, whose daughter became the mother of two queens.

While this was true, still I respected Betty less than I admired her and far less than she deserved, never entirely forgetting her station in life nor ceasing to recognize the great distance between us.

When I entered the Old Swan, Betty greeted me with a smile amid a nest of dimples, and led me upstairs to her parlor, so that we might talk without being overheard.  I sat down on a settle, and Betty took her place beside me.  Her hands rested on her lap, giving her an air of contentment as she turned her face toward me and asked:—­

“Have you come to see Master Hamilton?”

“Yes,” I answered, “and you.”

“And me?” she asked, looking up with a curious little smile.  “In what way may I serve you?”

“By sitting there and permitting me to look at you,” I answered.

“Oh, is that all?” she asked, laughing softly.

“And by smiling once in a while,” I suggested.

“Who shall smile?  You or I?” she queried, glancing slyly up to me.

“Oh, you, by all means,” I returned.  “There is no beauty in my smile, while yours—­”

“Come, come, Baron Ned,” she interrupted, looking up to me pleadingly.  “My smiles are honest, and that is all that is needful in my case.  So don’t try to make me believe they are anything more.  Don’t make a fool of me by flattery.”

“Don’t you like flattery, Betty?” I asked.

“Yes, of course I do,” she returned, smiling and dimpling exquisitely.  “But it is not good for me.  You know I might grow to believing it and you.”

“But it is true, Betty, and you may believe me,” I answered, very earnestly, taking her hand from her lap.

She permitted me to hold her hand for a moment, and said:—­

“I am so desirous of keeping my regard for you and of holding your regard for me that I am tempted to tell you I fear it will all change if I find you inclined to doubt that I am an honest girl.”

“I do not doubt it, Betty,” I answered.  “I know you and respect you, and you shall have no good cause to change your regard for me, if you have any.”

“Frequently gentlemen are rude to me in the tap-room, and I submit rather than make trouble by resenting it, but you have always been respectful, and—­and I have appreciated it, Baron Ned.  Father says I need not go to the tap-room hereafter, but may direct the maids in the house, now that I am growing old—­near twenty.”