to fight off the fatal words—"you said that you didn't dislike me; and, in fact, that you liked me very much; and"
But here Miss Patty cut him short again. She turned sharply round upon him, with those bright eyes and that merry face, and said, "Oh! how can you say so? I never said anything of the sort!"
"Well," said Mr. Verdant Green, who was now desperate, and mentally prepared to take the dreaded plunge into that throbbing sea that beats upon the strand of matrimony, "whether you like me very much or not, I like you very much!—very much indeed! Ever since I saw you, since last Christmas, I've—I've liked you—very much indeed."
Mr. Verdant Green, in a very hot and excited state, had, while he was speaking, timidly brought his hand once more to Miss Patty's waist; and she did not interfere with its position. In fact, she was bending down her head, and was gazing intently on another knot that she had wilfully made in her hat-strings; and she was working so violently at that occupation of untying the knot, that very probably she might not have been aware of the situation of Mr. Verdant Green's hand. At any rate, her own hands were too much busied to suffer her to interfere with his.
At last the climax had arrived. Mr. Verdant Green had screwed his courage to the sticking point, and had resolved to tell the secret of his love. He had got to the very edge of the precipice, and was on the point of jumping over head and ears
