through the barbed-wire fence which skirted the field--the boy had
leaped it, but she was not equal to that--and she hastened, leaving a
furrow through the white-and-gold herbage, to the boy lying on his
face weeping. She stood over him.

"Say?" said she.

The boy gave a convulsive wriggle of his back and shoulders, and
uttered an inarticulate "Let me alone"; but the girl persisted.

"Say?" said she again.

Then the boy turned, and disclosed a flushed, scowling face among the
flowers.

"Well, what do you want, anyway?" said he.

"If you want to marry Miss Slome, why don't you, instead of my
father?" inquired Maria, bluntly, going straight to the point.

"I haven't got any money," replied Wollaston, crossly; "all a woman
thinks of is money. How'd I buy her dresses?"

"I don't believe but your father would be willing for you to live at
home with her, and buy her dresses, till you got so you could earn
yourself."

"She wouldn't have me," said the boy, and he fairly dug his flushed
face into the mass of wild-flowers.