Little Bel, who, although she was
twenty years old, and had by no means been without her admirers, had
never yet kissed any man but her father and brothers, put up her rosy
lips, as confidingly as a little child, to be kissed by this strange
wooer, who wooed only for leave to woo.
"An' if he'd only known it, he might ha' asked a' he wanted then as well
as later," said Little Bel, honestly avowing the whole to her mother.
"As soon as he put his hands on me the very heart in me said he was my
man for a' my life. An' there's no shame in it that I can see. If a man
may love that way in the lighting of an eye, why may not a girl do the
same? There's not one kind o' heart i' the breast of a man an' another
kind i' the breast of a woman, as ever I heard." In which Little Bel, in
her innocence, was wiser than people wiser than she.
And after this there is no need of telling more,--only a picture or two
which are perhaps worth sketching in few words. One is the expression
which was seen on Sandy Bruce's face one day, not many weeks after his
first interview with Little Bel, when, in reply to his question, "An'
now, my own lass, what'll ye have for your weddin' gift from me? Tell me
the thing ye want most i' a' the earth, an' if it's in my means ye shall
have it the day ye gie me the thing I want maist i' the whole earth.
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