“No, no; but this is vague talk.”

Was he dissatisfied with me?  What could he expect?  We all went our separate ways, it is true; was it that?  Perhaps he felt alone.  I studied his face; it was not so cheerful as I remembered it once, but still open, honest, and wholesome.  I promised myself to observe his tastes and consult them.  It might be that his self-love had never been encouraged.  But I failed in that design, as in all others.

“Much of my time is consumed in passing between Milford and Surrey, you perceive.”

“I will go with you often.”

According to habit, on arriving, I went into the kitchen.  It was dusk there, and still.  Temperance was by the fire, attending to something which was cooking.

“What is there for supper, Temperance?  I am hungry.”

“I spose you are,” she answered crossly.  “You’ll see when it’s on the table.”

She took a coal of fire with the tongs, and blew it fiercely, to light a lamp by.  When it was alight, she set it on the chimney-shelf, revealing thereby a man at the back of the room, balancing his chair on two legs against the wail; his feet were on its highest round, and he twirled his thumbs.

“Hum,” he said, when he saw me observing him; “this is the oldest darter, is it?”

“Yes,” Temperance bawled.

“She is a good solid gal; but I can’t recollect her christened name.”

“It is Cassandra.”

“Why, ’taint Scriptur’.”

“Why don’t you go and take off your things?” Temperance asked, abruptly.

“I’ll leave them here; the fire is agreeable.”

“There is a better fire in the keeping-room.”

“How are you, Mr. Handy?” father inquired, coming in.

“I should be well, if my grinders didn’t trouble me; they play the mischief o’nights.  Have you heard from the Adamant, Mr. Morgeson?  I should like to get my poor boy’s chist.  The Lord ha’ mercy on him, whose bones are in the caverns of the deep.”

“Now, Abram, do shut up.  Tea is ready, Mr. Morgeson.  I’ll bring in the ham directly,” said Temperance.

There was no news from the Adamant.  I lingered in the hope of discovering why Mr. Handy irritated Temperance.  He was a man of sixty, with a round head, and a large, tender wart on one cheek; the two tusks under his upper lip suggested a walrus.  Though he was no beauty, he looked thoroughly respectable, in garments whose primal colors had disappeared, and blue woolen stockings gartered to a miracle of tightness.

“Temperance,” he said, “my quinces have done fust rate this year.  I haint pulled ’em yet; but I’ve counted them over and over agin.  But my pig wont weigh nothin’ like what I calkerlated on.  Sarved me right.  I needn’t have bought him out of a drove; if Charity had been alive, I shouldn’t ha’ done it.  A man can’t—­I say, Tempy—­a man can’t git along while here below, without a woman.”