Meantime, Chris Blanchard reflected, and the laughter faded out of her eyes, leaving them grave and a little troubled.  She was sufficiently familiar with lovers’ ways.  The bold, the uncouth, the humble, and timorous were alike within her experience.  She watched this kind-faced man grow hot and cold as he spoke to her, noted the admixture of temerity and fear that divided his mind and appeared in his words.  She had seen his lips tremble and refuse to pronounce her name; and she rightly judged that he would possibly repeat it aloud to himself more than once before he slept that night.  Chris was no flirt, and now heartily regretted her light and friendly banter upon the man’s departure.  “I be a silly fule, an’ wouldn’t whisper a word of this to any but Clem,” she thought, “for it may be nothing but the nervous way of un, an’ such a chap ’s a right to seek a sight further ’n me for a wife; an’ yet they all ‘pear the same, an’ act the same soft sort o’ style when they ’m like it.”  Then she considered that, seeing what friendship already obtained between Clement and Martin Grimbal, it was strange the latter still went in ignorance.  “Anyways, if I’m not wrong, the sooner he ’m told the better, for he’s a proper fashioned man,” she thought.

While Chris was still revolving this matter in her mind, Mrs. Blanchard returned with some news.

“Postmistress stepped out of the office wi’ this as I corned down the village,” she said. “’T is from Mrs. Watson, I fancy.”

Her daughter brought a light, and the letter was perused.  “Uncle ’s took bad,” Mrs. Blanchard presently announced; “an’ sends to say as he wants me to go along an’ help Sarah Watson nurse un.”

“Him ill!  I never thought he was made of stuff to be ill.”

“I must go, whether or no.  I’ll take the coach to Moreton to-morrow.”

Mrs. Blanchard mentally traversed her wardrobe as she drank tea, and had already packed in anticipation before the meal was ended.  Will, on returning, was much perturbed at this bad news, for since his own marriage Uncle Ford had become a hero among men to him.

“What’s amiss she doan’t say—­Mrs. Watson—­but it’s more ’n a fleabite else he wouldn’t take his bed.  But I hopes I’ll have un to rights again in a week or so.  ’Mind me to take a bottle of last summer’s Marshmally brew, Chris. Doctors laugh at such physic, but I knaw what I knaw.”

“Wonder if’t would better him to see me?” mused Will.

“No, no; no call for that.  You’ll be fit to stand to work by Monday, so mind your business an’ traapse round an’ look for it.  Theer ’s plenty doin’ ‘pon the land now, an’ I want to hear you’ ve got a job ’fore I come home.  Husbands must work for two; an’ Phoebe’ll be on your hands come less than a couple o’ years.”

“One year and five months and seven days ’t is.”

“Very well.  You’ve got to mind a brace of things meantime; to make a vitty home for her by the sweat of your body, an’ to keep your hands off her till she ’m free to come to ’e.”