Best Acting

The next few days Mattie was like a different girl. I will say for her that she always did her fair share of the work, but she did it with a face as long as a fiddle. Only now her face was all round and dimply, and like a child's that has got a prize at school. On Wednesday afternoon she said to me, 'I'm going to meet Jack, and don't you say a word to the others about it, Jane. I'll tell father myself when I come back, if you'll get the tea like a good girl, and just tell them I've gone up to the village.' 'I don't tell lies as a rule, especially for other people,' I says; 'but I don't mind doing it for you this once.' And she kissed me (she had got mighty fond of kissing these last few days), and ran upstairs to get ready. When she come down, if you'll believe me, she wasn't in her best dress as any other girl would have been, but she had gone and put on a dowdy old green and white delaine that had been her Sunday dress, trimmed with green satin piping, three years before, and the old hat she had with all the flowers faded and the ribbons crumpled up, that was three year old too, and the very one she used to walk home from church with him on Sundays in. And her with a really good blue poplin laid by and a new bonnet with red roses in it, only come home the week before from Maidstone. She come through the kitchen where I was setting the tea, and she took the key of the church off the nail in the wall. Our farm was full a mile from the village, and half way between it and the church. So we kept one key, and Jack's uncle, who was the sexton, he had the other. 'What time was you to meet Jack?' I says. 'He didn't say,' said she; 'but it used to be half-past six.' 'You're full early,' says I. 'Yes,' she says, 'but I've got to take the butter down to Weller's, and to call in for something first.' And, of course, I knew that she meant that she had to call in for that note at the church. Minute she was out of the way, I runs into the kitchen, and says to our maid-- 'Poor Mrs. Tibson's not so well, Polly. I'm going over to see her. Give the men their tea, will you? there's a good girl.' And she said she would. And in ten minutes I was dressed, and nicely dressed too, for I had on my white frock and the things I had had at a girl's wedding the summer before, and a pair of new gloves I had got out of my butter-money. Then I went off up the hill to the church after Mattie, even then not making up my mind what I was going to do, but with an idea that all things somehow might work together for good to me if I only had the sense to see how, and turn things that way. As I come up to the church I was just in time to see her old green gown going in at the porch, and when I come up the key was in the door, and she hadn't come out. Quick as thought, the idea come to me to have a joke with her and lock her in, so she shouldn't meet him, and next minute I had turned the key in the lock softly, and stole off through the church porch, and up to the ash copse, which I couldn't make a mistake about, for there's only one within a mile of the church. Jack was there, though it was before the time. I could see his blue tie and white shirt-front shining through the trees. When I locked her in I only meant to have a sort of joke--at least, I think so,--but when I come close up to him and saw how well off he looked, and the diamond ring on his fingers, and his pin and his gold chain, I thought to myself-- 'Well, you go to Liverpool to-morrow, young man! And she ain't got your address, and, likely as not, if you go away vexed with her, you won't leave it with your aunt, and one wife is as good as another, if not better, and as for her caring for you, that's all affectation and silliness--so here goes.' He stepped forward, with his hands held out to me, but when he saw it was me he stopped short. 'Why, Miss Jane,' he said, 'I beg your pardon. I was expecting quite a different person.' 'Yes, I know,' I says, 'you was expecting my cousin Mattie.' 'And isn't she coming?' he asks very quick, looking at me full, with his blue eyes. 'I hope you won't take it hard, Mr. Halibut,' says I, 'but she said she'd rather not come.' 'Confound it!' says he. 'You see,' I went on, 'it's a long time since you was at home, and you not writing or anything, and some girls are very flighty and changeable; and she told me to tell you she was sorry if you were mistaken in her feelings about you, and she's had time to think things over since three years ago; and now you're so well off, she says she's sure you'll find no difficulty in getting a girl suited to your mind.' 'Did she say that?' he said, looking at me very straight. 'It's not like her.' 'I don't mean she said so in those words, or that she told me to tell you so; but that's what I made out to be her mind from what she said between us two like.' 'But what message did she send to me? For I suppose she sent you to meet me to-day.' Then I saw that I should have to be very careful. So to get a little time I says, 'I don't quite like to tell you, Mr. Halibut, what she said.' 'Out with it,' says he. 'Don't be a fool, girl!' 'Well, then,' I says, 'if it must be so, her words were these: "Tell Jack," she says, "that I shall ever wish him well for the sake of what's past, but all's over betwixt him and me, and--"' 'And what,' says he. 'There wasn't much besides,' says I. 'Good God, don't be such an idiot!' and he looked as if he could have shaken me. 'Well, then, if you must have it,' says I, 'she says, "Tell Jack there's at least one girl I know of as would make him a better wife than I should, and has been thinking of him steady and faithful these three years, while I've been giving my mind to far other things."' 'Confound her!' says he, 'little witch. And who is this other girl that she's so gracious to hand me over to?' 'I don't want to say no more,' says I. 'I'm going now, Mr. Halibut. Goodbye.' For well I knew he wouldn't let me go at that. 'Tell me who it is,' says he. 'What! she's not content with giving me the mitten herself, but she must insult me and this poor girl too, who's got more sense than she has. Good Heavens, it would serve her right if I took her at her word, and took the other girl back with me.' He was walking up and down with his hands in his pockets, frowning like a July thunderstorm. 'Wicked, heartless little--but there, thank God! all women aren't like her. Who's this girl that she's tried to set me against?' 'I can't tell you,' says I. 'Oh! can't you, my girl? But you shall.' And he catches hold of both my wrists in his hands. 'Leave me go!' I cried, 'you're hurting me.'