`What I meant to tell you was only this,' she said eagerly, and yet half conscious of the absurdity of the position she had made for herself - `that nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my having a dozen, as my aunt said; I hate to be thought men's property in that way, though possibly I shall be had some day. Why, if I'd wanted you I shouldn't have run after you like this; 'twould have been the forwardest thing! But there was no harm in hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you.'

`Oh, no - no harm at all.' But there is such a thing as being too generous in expressing a judgement impulsively, and Oak added with a more appreciative sense of all the circumstances - `Well, I am not quite certain it was no harm.'

`Indeed, I hadn't time to think before starting whether I wanted to marry or not, for you'd have been gone over the hill.'

`Come,' said Gabriel, freshening again; `think a minute or two. I'll wait a while, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do Bathsheba. I love you far more than common!'

`I'll try to think,' she observed rather more timorously; `if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so.'

`But you can give a guess.'

`Then give me time.' Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood.

`I can make you happy,' said he to the back of her head, across the bush. `You shall have a piano in a year or two - farmers' wives ate getting to have pianos now - and I'll practise up the flute right well to play with you in the evenings.'

`Yes, I should like that.'

`And have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market - and nice flowers, and birds - cocks and hens I mean, because they be useful,' continued Gabriel, feeling balanced between poetry and practicality.

`I should like it very much.'

`And a frame for cucumbers - like a gentleman and lady.'

`Yes.'

`And when the wedding was over, we'd have it put in the newspaper list of marriages.'

`Dearly I should like that!'

`And the babies in the births - every man jack of `em! And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you.'

`Wait, wait, and don't be improper!'

Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. He regarded the red berries between them over and over again, to such an extent that holly seemed in his after life to be a cypher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba decisively turned to him.

`No; 'tis no use,' she said. `I don't want to marry you.'

`Try.'