“But what harm does he do, poor fellow,” said Mavis, indulgently, “except muddling away his own time?”

“He’s up to no good,” said Mary; and she flounced across to the door, and looked out at the now empty path.  “Hanging about like that!  Why can’t he keep away?  I don’t want him.”

Mrs. Goudie, at the sink, screwed up her wrinkled nut-cracker face, and chuckled.

“No, mum, she don’t want un.  But he wants she.”

And, astonishing as it might seem, this was truly the case.  The higgler had fallen in love with Mary; and she, apparently without a single explicit word, had understood the nature of the emotion that stirred his breast.  He had somehow surrounded her with an atmosphere of admiration—­anyhow he had made her understand.

Mavis laughed gaily, and chaffed Mary about her conquest; and henceforth she more or less obliterated herself when this visitor called, and allowed the servant to conduct all transactions with him.

Mary was always very stern, disparaging his goods, and beating down his prices; while he stood sheepishly grinning, and in no wise protesting against her harshness.  He now of course stayed longer than ever, indeed only withdrew when Mary indignantly drove him away.

“Be off, can’t you?” cried Mary.  “I’m ashamed of you.”

“Haw, haw,” chuckled Mrs. Goudie.  “Don’t she peck at un fierce.”

“Yes, Mary,” and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused.  “I do think you’re rather cruel to him.”

“’Twill be t’other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps.”

Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work.  “I ain’t afeard o’ that day, Mrs. Goudie.  He isn’t going the right way to win me, I can tell him.  I hate his sly ways.”

Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship.  Except for the disparity of years it seemed a desirable match.  It was known that he had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.

And thus Mary’s little romance, announcing itself so abruptly and developing itself so slowly, brought still another new interest to Vine-Pits kitchen.  It was something vivid and bright and even fantastic in the midst of solidly useful facts, like the strange flower that blooms on a roadside merely because some high-flying strong-winged bird has carelessly happened to drop a seed.

“What,” thought Mavis, “can any of us do without love?  And where should we be without the odd chances that bring love to us?”

XIV

Fat easy years came now after the hard and lean ones; and the Dales in the dual regions of home and trade were doing really well.  Dale had a powerful decently-bred cob to ride; on Wednesdays, when he went into Old Manninglea for the Corn Market, he often wore a silk top-hat and always a black coat; and at all times he looked exactly what he was, an alert, industrious, straight-dealing personage who has risen considerably and who intends to rise still higher in the social scale.