Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/207

“I shall never forget Tony's face. ‘Twas a little, round, firm, tight face, with a seam here and there left by the small-pox, but not enough to hurt his looks in a woman’s eye, though he’d had it badish when he was a boy. So very serious looking and unemiling ’a was, that young man, that it really seemed as if he couldn’t laugh at all without great pain to his conscience, He looked very bard at a small speck in your eye when talking to 'ee. And there was no more sign of a whisker or beard on Tony Kytes’s face than on the palm of my hand. He used to sing ‘The Tailor’s Breeches’ with a réligioua manner, as if it were a hymn:

‘“ O the petticoats went off, and the breeches they went on;’

and all the rest of the scandalous stuff. He was quite the women’s favorite, and in return for their likinga he loved ’em in shoals.

“ But in course of time Tony got fixed down to one in particular, Milly Richards—a niece, light, small, tender little thing; and it was soon said that they were engaged to be married. One Saturday he had been to market to do business for his father, and was driving home the wagon in the afternoon. When he reached the foot of the very hill we shall be going over in ten minutes, who should he see waiting for him at the top but Unity Sallet, a handsome girl, one of the young women he’d been very tender towards before he’d got engaged to Milly.