Rhoda coughed.

“And she wears lavender gloves like a lady,” Mrs. Sumfit was continuing.

Rhoda stamped on her foot.

“Oh! cruel!” the comfortable old woman snapped in pain, as she applied her hand to the inconsolable fat foot, and nursed it.  “What’s roused ye, you tiger girl?  I shan’t be able to get about, I shan’t, and then who’s to cook for ye all?  For you’re as ignorant as a raw kitchen wench, and knows nothing.”

“Come, Dody, you’re careless,” the farmer spoke chidingly through Mrs. Sumfit’s lamentations.

“She stops uncle Anthony when he’s just ready, father,” said Rhoda.

“Do you want to know?” Anthony set his small eyes on her:  “do you want to know, my dear?” He paused, fingering his glass, and went on:  “I, Susan, take thee, William John, and you’ve come of it.  Says I to myself, when I hung sheepish by your mother and by your father, my dear, says I to myself, I ain’t a marrying man:  and if these two, says I, if any progeny comes to ’em—­to bless them, some people’d say, but I know what life is, and what young ones are—­if—­where was I?  Liquor makes you talk, brother William John, but where’s your ideas?  Gone, like hard cash!  What I meant was, I felt I might some day come for’ard and help the issue of your wife’s weddin’, and wasn’t such a shady object among you, after all.  My pipe’s out.”

Rhoda stood up, and filled the pipe, and lit it in silence.  She divined that the old man must be allowed to run on in his own way, and for a long time he rambled, gave a picture of the wedding, and of a robbery of Boyne’s Bank:  the firm of Boyne, Burt, Hamble, and Company.  At last, he touched on Dahlia.

“What she wants, I can’t make out,” he said; “and what that good lady there, or somebody, made mention of—­how she manages to dress as she do!  I can understand a little goin’ a great way, if you’re clever in any way; but I’m at my tea”—­Anthony laid his hand out as to exhibit a picture.  “I ain’t a complaining man, and be young, if you can, I say, and walk about and look at shops; but, I’m at my tea:  I come home rather tired there’s the tea-things, sure enough, and tea’s made, and, maybe, there’s a shrimp or two; she attends to your creature comforts.  When everything’s locked up and tight and right, I’m gay, and ask for a bit of society:  well, I’m at my tea:  I hear her foot thumping up and down her bed-room overhead:  I know the meaning of that:  I’d rather hear nothing:  down she runs:  I’m at my tea, and in she bursts.”—­Here followed a dramatic account of Dahlia’s manner of provocation, which was closed by the extinction of his pipe.