shouldn't have been rude to me, sir."

He stopped staunching his wound and burst into a great roar of laughter
which had no good humour in it.

"Lord, lord!" he said. "That's the best thing I've heard of this many a
day. Why a little country hussy like you ought to be honoured by
receiving a gentleman's kisses. There, my dear, get rid of your dog. I
don't want to kick her brains out as I could easily do, and as she
deserves to have done for having bitten me. Send her home with a stone
at her heels and come and sit by me on the stile. You shall see how
prettily a gentleman makes love."

I suppose I must have looked at him with the horror I felt for him, for
he laughed again.

"What," he said, "am I so ugly as all that? I can tell you, my dear,
that a good many of your sex, both small and great, regard me as a very
pretty fellow. In fact, I'm pestered with the women. I assure you I
really am, my dear. And so you won't give me a kiss of your own free
will? Why, I could take it if I liked; but I'm not sure that I want to
take it till you come and offer it to me of your own free will."

"That I shall never do," I said.

"I'm not so sure of that," he replied. "There aren't many ladies in this
county wouldn't give me a kiss if I wanted it, much less a little
dairymaid like you."

I thought at the time that it was his egregious vanity and conceit, but