Besides,' I says, 'what does it matter to her or to you, 'Becca, or to me, if so be that it _is_ true, which I'm not for believing that it is, not I,' I says." "But what was it, Liza?
You've not told me what it was, lass, that Mrs.Garth had said about me." Rotha had stopped churning, and was standing, with the color rising even closer round her eyes.

Luckily, Liza had no time to observe the minor manifestations of her friend's uneasiness; she had taken hold of the "plunger," and was squaring herself to her work.
"Say!" she cried; "why the old carlin will say aught in the world but her prayers--she says that you're settin' your cap at one of these Rays boys; that's about what she says the old witchwife, for she's no better.

But it's as I said to 'Becca Rudd, says I, 'If it _is_ true what traffic is it of anybody's; but it isn't true,' I says, 'and if it _is_, where's the girl that has more right?
It can't be Ralph that she's settin' her cap at, 'Becca,' I says, 'for Ralph's gone, and mayhap never to come to these parts again the longest day he lives.'" "Don't say that, Liza," interrupted Rotha in a hoarse voice.
"Why not?
Those redcoats are after him from Carlisle, arn't they ?" "Don't say he'll not come back.

We scarce know what may happen." "Well, that's what father says, anyway.

But, back or not back, it can't be Ralph, I says to 'Becca." "There's not a girl worthy of him, Liza; not a girl on the country side.