“Lord love ye, Passon Walden, I ain’t askin’ ye no such thing;” retorted Mrs. Spruce; “Don’t ye think it!  For there’s nothin’ like a man, passon or no passon, for makin’ rumples of every bit of clothes he touches, even his own coats and weskits, and I wouldn’t let ye lay hands on any o’ these things to save my life.  Why, they’d go to pieces at the mere sight of yer fingers, they’re so flimsy!  What I thought ye might do, was to be a witness to us while we sorted them all.  It’s a great thing to have a man o’ God as a witness to the likes o’ this work!”

Again Walden laughed, this time with very genuine heartiness, though he did wish Mrs. Spruce would put away the troublesome pink shoes which she still held, and to which he found his eyes still wandering.

“Nonsense!  You don’t want any witness!” he said gaily; “What are you thinking about, Mrs. Spruce?  When Miss Vancourt is here, all you have to do is to go over every item of her property with her, and see that she finds it all right.  If anything is missing, it’s not your fault.”

“If anythink’s missing,” echoed Mrs. Spruce in sepulchral tones, “then the Lord knows what we’ll do, for it’ll be all over, so far as we’re consarned!  Beggars in the street’ll be kings to us.  Passon, I reckon ye doesn’t read the newspapers much, does ye?”

“Pretty fairly,” responded Walden still smiling; “I keep myself as well acquainted as I can with what is going on in the world.”

“Does ye now?” And Mrs. Spruce surveyed him admiringly.  “Well, now, I shouldn’t have thought it, for ye seems as inn’cent as a babby I do assure ye; ye seems jes’ that.  But mebbe ye doesn’t get the same kind o’ newspapers which we poor folks gets—­reg’ler weekly penny lists o’ murders, soocides, railway haccidents, burgul’ries, fires, droppin’s down dead suddint, struck by lightnin’ and collapsis, with remedies pervided for all in the advertisements invigoratin’ to both old and young, bone and sinew, brain and body, whether it be pills, potions, tonics, lotions, ointment or min’ral waters.  Them’s the sort o’ papers we gets, or rather the ‘Mother Huff’ takes ’em all in for us, an’ the ’ole village drinks the ‘orrors an’ the medicines in with the ale.  Ah!  It’s mighty edifyin’, Passon, I do assure ye—­and many of us goes to church on Sundays and reads the ‘orrors an’ medicines in the arternoon, and whether we remembers your sermon or the ‘orrors an’ medicines most, the Lord only knows!  But it’s in them papers I sees how fine leddies goes on nowadays, and if they misses so much as a two-and-sixpenny ’airpin, some of ’em out of sheer spite, will ’aul a gel up ’fore the p’lice and ’ave ’er in condemned cells in no time, so that ye see, Passon, if so be Miss Maryllia counts over the sparkling diamants and one’s lost, we’ll all be brought ’fore Sir Morton Pippitt as county mag’strate afore we’ve ’ad time to look at our breakfasts.  Wherefore, I sez, why not ‘ave a man o’ God as witness?”