“Is her health good?”

“Ay; stomach’s good, head’s good, lungs, brain, what not, all good.  She’s a bit giddy, that’s all.”

“In her head?”

“Ay; and on her pins.  Never you mind.  You look a steady one, my dear.  I shall take to you, I think.”

“But my sister—­” Rhoda was saying, when the farmer came out, and sent a greeting from the threshold,—­

“Brother Tony!”

“Here he is, brother William John.”

“Surely, and so he is, at last.”  The farmer walked up to him with his hand out.

“And it ain’t too late, I hope.  Eh?”

“It’s never too late—­to mend,” said the farmer.

“Eh? not my manners, eh?” Anthony struggled to keep up the ball; and in this way they got over the confusion of the meeting after many years and some differences.

“Made acquaintance with Rhoda, I see,” said the farmer, as they turned to go in.

“The ‘darkie lass’ you write of.  She’s like a coal nigh a candle.  She looks, as you’d say, ‘t’ other side of her sister.’  Yes, we’ve had a talk.”

“Just in time for dinner, brother Tony.  We ain’t got much to offer, but what there is, is at your service.  Step aside with me.”

The farmer got Anthony out of hearing a moment, questioned, and was answered:  after which he looked less anxious, but a trifle perplexed, and nodded his head as Anthony occasionally lifted his, to enforce certain points in some halting explanation.  You would have said that a debtor was humbly putting his case in his creditor’s ear, and could only now and then summon courage to meet the censorious eyes.  They went in to Mrs. Sumfit’s shout that the dumplings were out of the pot:  old Anthony bowed upon the announcement of his name, and all took seats.  But it was not the same sort of dinner-hour as that which the inhabitants of the house were accustomed to; there was conversation.

The farmer asked Anthony by what conveyance he had come.  Anthony shyly, but not without evident self-approbation, related how, having come by the train, he got into conversation with the driver of a fly at a station, who advised him of a cart that would be passing near Wrexby.  For threepennyworth of beer, he had got a friendly introduction to the carman, who took him within two miles of the farm for one shilling, a distance of fifteen miles.  That was pretty good!

“Home pork, brother Tony,” said the farmer, approvingly.

“And home-made bread, too, brother William John,” said Anthony, becoming brisk.

“Ay, and the beer, such as it is.”  The farmer drank and sighed.

Anthony tried the beer, remarking, “That’s good beer; it don’t cost much.”

“It ain’t adulterated.  By what I read of your London beer, this stuff’s not so bad, if you bear in mind it’s pure.  Pure’s my motto.  ’Pure, though poor!’”

“Up there, you pay for rank poison,” said Anthony.  “So, what do I do?  I drink water and thank ’em, that’s wise.”