“No,” he answered. “’Tis a good billet; but nothing to make a fuss about.  Of course for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, it would be a godsend and above their highest hopes or deserts; but I’m the hundredth man—­a man of very rare gifts and understanding, and full of accomplishments gathered from the ends of the world.  I’m not saying it ain’t a good home and a happy one; but I’m free to tell you that the luck ain’t all on one side; and for your sister to fall in with me in her declining years was a very fortunate thing for her; and I don’t think that Miss Blake would deny it if you was to ask her.”

“In fact you reckon yourself a proper angel in the house,” I said in my comical tone of voice.  But he didn’t see nothing very funny in that.

“So I do,” he said.  “It was always my intention to settle down and be somebody’s right hand man some day; and if it hadn’t been your sister, it would have been some other body.  I’m built like that,” he added.  “I never did much good for myself, owing to my inquiring mind and great interest in other people; but I’ve done good for others more than once, and shall again.”

“And what about the church-going?” I asked him.  “Is that all ’my eye and Betty Martin,’ or do you go because you like going?”

“’Tis a good thing for the women to go to church,” he answered, “and your sister is all the better for it, and has often thanked me for putting her in the way.”

“’Twas more than I could do, though I’ve often been at her,” I told the man, admiring his determined character.

And then came the beginning of the real fun, when Mary turned up at Brownberry after dark one night in a proper tantara, with her eyes rolling and her bosom heaving like the waves of the sea.  She’d come over Dart, by the stepping stones—­a tricky road for an old woman even by daylight, but a fair marvel at night.

“God’s my judge!” began Mary, dropping in the chair by the fire.  “God’s my judge, Rupert and Susan, but he’s offered marriage!”

“Bob!” I said; and yet I weren’t so surprised as I pretended to be.  And my wife didn’t even pretend.

“I’ve seen it coming this longful time, Mary,” she declared.  “And why not?”

“Why not?  I wonder at you, Susan!” my sister answered, all in a flame.  “To think of an old woman like me—­with white hair and a foot in the grave!”

“You ain’t got a foot in the grave!” answered Susan.  “In fact you be peart as a wagtail on both feet—­else you’d never have come over they slipper-stones in the dark so clever.  And your hair’s only white by a trick of nature, and sixty-five ain’t old on Dartmoor.”

“Nor yet anywhere else,” I said.  “The females don’t throw up the sponge in their early forties nowadays, like they used to do.  In fact far from it.  Didn’t I see Squire Bellamy’s lady riding astride to hounds but yesterday week, in male trousers and a tight coat—­and her forty-six if a day?  You’re none too old for him, if that was all.”