“Silence!” said the tranter.

“Well, now comes the interesting part of the story!  In a little time he made that ten pounds twenty.  Then a little time after that he doubled it, and made it forty.  Well, he went on, and a good while after that he made it eighty, and on to a hundred.  Well, by-and-by he made it two hundred!  Well, you’d never believe it, but—­he went on and made it four hundred!  He went on, and what did he do?  Why, he made it eight hundred!  Yes, he did,” continued Leaf, in the highest pitch of excitement, bringing down his fist upon his knee with such force that he quivered with the pain; “yes, and he went on and made it A thousand!”

“Hear, hear!” said the tranter.  “Better than the history of England, my sonnies!”

“Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf,” said grandfather William; and then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again.

Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his bride took their departure, side by side in the excellent new spring-cart which the young tranter now possessed.  The moon was just over the full, rendering any light from lamps or their own beauties quite unnecessary to the pair.  They drove slowly along Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed between two copses.  Dick was talking to his companion.

“Fancy,” he said, “why we are so happy is because there is such full confidence between us.  Ever since that time you confessed to that little flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no flirtation at all), I have thought how artless and good you must be to tell me o’ such a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about it as you were.  It has won me to tell you my every deed and word since then.  We’ll have no secrets from each other, darling, will we ever?—­no secret at all.”

“None from to-day,” said Fancy.  “Hark! what’s that?”

From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, musical, and liquid voice—­

“Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki!  Come hither, come hither, come hither!”

“O, ’tis the nightingale,” murmured she, and thought of a secret she would never tell.

Footnotes: 

{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less questionable.

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