A woman knows without words, being gifted by nature to understand signs and signals, whether of danger, or the reverse; and so I knew Gregory was very much addicted to me and only waiting the appointed time to offer.  For a long while I thought he would put the proposal in a letter, and then, remembering his caution and his terror of the written word, I guessed he’d never so far commit himself as to set it down.  But I was ready and willing, for Greg had a tidy little greengrocer’s business and they counted him a snug man.  A bachelor of sixty-two he was—­clean as a new pin of a Sunday and very well thought upon.  A bearded man, with a wrinkled brow and eyes that looked shifty to a stranger; but ’twas only his undying caution made them so.  As straight as any other greengrocer, and straighter than some.  And I was tolerable poor, but not lacking in gifts to shine, given the chance; and I knew Gregory inside out, you may say, and felt that in the shop and the home, he’d be a happier man for my company.

So, when the year was out and he still kept hanging on, though never a day passed but he looked in, or brought a bunch of pretty fresh green stuff, I felt the man’s hand must be strengthened.

“I’ll save him from himself in this matter,” I thought.  “He’s got a way of thinking time and eternity be the same thing, and he’s looked all round the bargain for more’n a year, so ’tis up to me to help him in the way he very clearly wants to go.”  And I set about him and made it easy for him to see he wouldn’t get “No” for an answer when he brought himself to the brink.  I made it so clear as a woman could that I cared for Sweet, and I aired my views and dropped a good few delicate-minded hints, such as that he didn’t look to be getting any younger and more didn’t I; and when the Rev. Champernowne preached a very fine performance on the words, “Now is the accepted time,” I rubbed it in fearlessly when Mr. Sweet next came for a smoke and talk after his supper.

“Time don’t stand still with the youngest,” I said, “and for my part it seems to go quicker with the middle-aged than anybody; and many a man and woman too,” I said, “have lived to look back and see what a lot they missed, through too much caution and doubt.  ’Nothing venture, nothing have,’ is a very true word,” I said, “and when a man have only got to open his mouth to win his heart’s desire, he’s a good bit of a fool, Greg, to keep it shut.”

I couldn’t say no more than that, and he nodded and answered me that he didn’t know but what I might be right.

“There’s not your equal for sense in the parish,” he told me, and being worked up a bit that evening, I very near gave him an impatient answer; but that ain’t my way:  I just held in and told him that I was glad he thought so, and I believed he weren’t the only one.  Then he took a curious look at me and said “Good evening,” and went on his way.