“I should think you did!” said the farmer, winking slyly.

Anthony caught the smile, hesitated and looked shrewd, and then covered his confusion by holding his plate to Mrs. Sumfit for a help.  The manifest evasion and mute declaration that dumpling said “mum” on that head, gave the farmer a quiet glow.

“When you are ready to tell me all about my darlin’, sir,” Mrs. Sumfit suggested, coaxingly.

“After dinner, mother—­after dinner,” said the farmer.

“And we’re waitin’, are we, till them dumplings is finished?” she exclaimed, piteously, with a glance at Master Gammon’s plate.

“After dinner we’ll have a talk, mother.”

Mrs. Sumfit feared from this delay that there was queer news to be told of Dahlia’s temper; but she longed for the narrative no whit the less, and again cast a sad eye on the leisurely proceedings of Master Gammon.  The veteran was still calmly tightening.  His fork was on end, with a vast mouthful impaled on the prongs.  Master Gammon, a thoughtful eater, was always last at the meal, and a latent, deep-lying irritation at Mrs. Sumfit for her fidgetiness, day after day, toward the finish of the dish, added a relish to his engulfing of the monstrous morsel.  He looked at her steadily, like an ox of the fields, and consumed it, and then holding his plate out, in a remorseless way, said, “You make ’em so good, marm.”

Mrs. Sumfit, fretted as she was, was not impervious to the sound sense of the remark, as well as to the compliment.

“I don’t want to hurry you, Mas’ Gammon,” she said; “Lord knows, I like to see you and everybody eat his full and be thankful; but, all about my Dahly waitin’,—­I feel pricked wi’ a pin all over, I do; and there’s my blessed in London,” she answered, “and we knowin’ nothin’ of her, and one close by to tell me!  I never did feel what slow things dumplin’s was, afore now!”

The kettle simmered gently on the hob.  Every other knife and fork was silent; so was every tongue.  Master Gammon ate and the kettle hummed.  Twice Mrs. Sumfit sounded a despairing, “Oh, deary me!” but it was useless.  No human power had ever yet driven Master Gammon to a demonstration of haste or to any acceleration of the pace he had chosen for himself.  At last, she was not to be restrained from crying out, almost tearfully,—­

“When do you think you’ll have done, Mas’ Gammon?”

Thus pointedly addressed, Master Gammon laid down his knife and fork.  He half raised his ponderous, curtaining eyelids, and replied,—­

“When I feels my buttons, marm.”

After which he deliberately fell to work again.

Mrs. Sumfit dropped back in her chair as from a blow.

But even dumplings, though they resist so doggedly for a space, do ultimately submit to the majestic march of Time, and move.  Master Gammon cleared his plate.  There stood in the dish still half a dumpling.  The farmer and Rhoda, deeming that there had been a show of inhospitality, pressed him to make away with this forlorn remainder.