“Uncle Issy,” asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, “I durstn’ g-glint over my shoulder—­but wud ‘ee mind tellin’ me if th’ old woman’s lookin’ this way—­afore I squench my thirst?”

“Iss, she be.”

Jim groaned.  “Then wud ‘ee mind a-hofferin’ me a taste out o’ your pannikin? an’ I’ll make b’lieve to say ‘Norronany’ count.’  Amazin’ ’ot t’ night,” he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forward with a vague smile.

Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his part of the comedy with elaborate slyness.  “I don’t like that strange chap,” he announced, irrelevantly.

“Nor I nuther,” agreed Elias Sweetland, “tho’ to be sure, I’ve a-kept my eye ‘pon en, an’ the wonders he accomplishes in an old pair o’ Tresidder’s high-lows must be seen to be believed.  But that’s no call for Ruby’s dancin’ wi’ he a’most so much as wi’ her proper man.”

“The gel’s takin’ her fling afore wedlock.  I heard Sarah Ann Nanjulian, just now, sayin’ she ought to be clawed.”

“A jealous woman is a scourge shaken to an’ fro,” said Old Zeb; “but I’ve a mind, friends, to strike up ‘Randy my dandy,’ for that son o’ mine is lookin’ blacker than the horned man, an’ may be ’twill comfort ’en to dance afore the public eye; for there’s none can take his wind in a hornpipe.”

In fact, it was high time that somebody comforted Young Zeb, for his heart was hot.  He had brought home the chest of drawers in his cart, and spent an hour fixing on the best position for it in the bedroom, before dressing for the dance.  Also he had purchased, in Mr. Pennyway’s shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for Ruby when the happy day came for installing her.  Finding he had still twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief, and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings.  Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious picture for him.  He picked up his hat, and set out for Sheba in the best of tempers.

But at Sheba all had gone badly.  Ruby’s frock of white muslin and Ruby’s small sandal shoes were bewitching, but Ruby’s mood passed his intelligence.  It was true she gave him half the dances, but then she gave the other half to that accursed stranger, and the stranger had all her smiles, which was carrying hospitality too far.  Not a word had she uttered to Zeb beyond the merest commonplaces; on the purchase of the chest of drawers she had breathed no question; she hung listlessly on his arm, and spoke only of the music, the other girls’ frocks, the arrangement of the supper-table.  And at supper the stranger had not only sat on the other side of her, but had talked all the time, and on books, a subject entirely uninteresting to Zeb.  Worst of all, Ruby had listened.  No; the worst of all was a remark of Modesty Prowse’s that he chanced to overhear afterwards.