She looked round her sulkily.

“Well, I’ve done my best, Tammas, and I daursay yo’ have too.  But it’s not a place to bring a leddy to—­an’ that’s the truth.”

“Foaks mun please theirsels,” said Dixon with the same studied mildness as before.  Then, having at last made the logs burn, as he hoped, with some brightness, he proceeded to sweep up the wide stone hearth.  “Is t’ rooms upstairs finished?”

“Aye—­hours ago.”  His wife dropped with a weary gesture upon a chair near the fire.  “Tammas, yo’ know it’s a queer thing awthegither!  What are they coomin’ here for at all?”

“Well, master’s coom into t’ property, an’ I’m thinkin’ it’s nobbut his dooty to coom an’ see it.  It’s two year sen he came into ‘t; an’ he’s done nowt but tak’ t’ rents, an’ turn off men, an’ clutter up t’ house wi’ boxes, iver sense.  It’s time, I’m thinkin’, as he did coom an’ luke into things a bit.”

Thomas rose from his knees, and stood warming himself at the fire, while he looked pensively round him.  He was as tired as his wife, and quite as mistrustful of what might be before them; but he was not going to confess it.  He was a lean and gaunt fellow, blue-eyed and broad-shouldered, of a Cumbria type commonly held to be of Scandinavian origin.  His eye was a little wandering and absent, and the ragged gray whiskers which surrounded his countenance emphasized the slight incoherence of its expression.  Quiet he was and looked.  But his wife knew him for one of the most incurably obstinate of men; the inveterate critic moreover of everything and every one about him, beginning with herself.  This trait of his led her unconsciously to throw most of her remarks to him into the form of questions, as offering less target to criticism than other forms of statement.  As for instance: 

“Tammas, did yo’ hear me say what I’d gotten from Mr. Tyson?”

“Aye.”

“That the mistress was an Eye-talian.”

“Aye—­by the mother—­an’ popish, besides.”

Mrs. Dixon sighed.

“How far ‘ull it be to t’ chapel at Scargill Fell?”

“Nine mile.  She’ll not be for takkin’ much notice of her Sunday dooties I’m thinkin’.”

“An’ yo’ unnerstan’ she’ll be juist a yoong thing?  An’t’ baby only juist walkin’.”

Dixon nodded.  Suddenly there was a sound in the corridor—­a girl’s laugh, and a rush of feet.  Thomas started slightly, and his wife observed him as sharply as the dim light permitted.

“Thyrza!” she raised her voice peremptorily.  “What are you doing there?”

Another laugh, and the girl from whom it came ran forward into the lamp-light, threading her way through the packing-cases, and followed by a small fox-terrier who was jumping round her.

“Doin’?  There’s nowt more to do as I know on.  An’ I’m most droppin’.”

So saying the girl jumped lightly on one of the larger packing-cases and sat there, her feet dangling.