But there it was.  With her melancholy nose, thin shoulders and sand-coloured hair, Minnie woke up no interest in the men, and there was only one person surprised to find it so, and that was herself.

She told me once, in her poor, corncrake voice, that she’d never had an affair in her life, though she’d saved money.  “I’d always thought to have a home of my own some day,” she told me, “for it ain’t as though I was one of them women that shun the male and plan to go through life without a partner; but they hold off, Mrs. Stocks, and the younger girls get married.”

“Plenty of time,” I said—­to pleasure her—­though knowing only too well there would never be the time for Minnie.  “You wait,” I said.  “All things come to them who wait.”

Little did I guess I was speaking a true word, but I went on: 

“Them as marry for the eye often find they’re mistook, and with your homely looks, my dear, you’ve always got the certainty no man will snatch at you like he would at a pretty flower.  When he comes, your husband will look beneath the surface and there he’ll find what’s better than pink cheeks and a glad eye.  So you wait,” I said, “for a chap who’s past the silly stage and wants a comfortable home and a good cook and helpmate who’ll look at both sides of sixpence before she spends it.”

’Twas well meant, but like a lot of other well-intending remarks, fell a good bit short to the hearer.  In fact the woman’s reply threw a bit of light on character and showed me a side of Minnie’s mind I had not bargained for.  She flickered up as I spoke and stared out of her faded eyes, and for a passing moment there comed a glint in ’em, like the sun on a dead fish.

“I didn’t know I was so plain as all that!” she snapped out.  “There’s uglier than me in the village, unless I can’t see straight, and whether or no, when I marry, it’ll be for love, let me tell you, Mary Stocks, and not to count my husband’s sixpences!”

“May he have more than you can count, my dear, when he do come,” I said, for the soft answer that turns away wrath has mostly been my motto.  And then I left her, champing on the bit, so to say; and I wondered where the poor soul had seen a less fanciable maiden than herself in our village, or any other.  But ’tis the mercy of Providence to hide reality from us where ’tis like to hurt most, and no doubt if our neighbours knew the naked truth of their queer appearances and uncomfortable natures, there would come a rush of them felo-de-sees and a lot of unhappiness that ignorance escapes.

Well, my poor John went, but before he’d done so it was plain to mark that our old and valued friend, Gregory Sweet, had me upon his mind.  Never a word he said while there was a spark of life in John and never a word he said afterwards either for a full year, and I liked him the better for it; but though cautious, he was not a concealer, and never attempted to hide his regard and hope where I was concerned.