“What a fine old kitchen this is!” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round admiringly.  He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiselled, polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous.  “And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser.  I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on the estate.”

“Well, sir, since you’re fond of ’em, I should be glad if you’d let a bit o’ repairs be done to ’em, for the boarding’s i’ that state as we’re like to be eaten up wi’ rats and mice; and the cellar, you may stan’ up to your knees i’ water in’t, if you like to go down; but perhaps you’d rather believe my words.  Won’t you please to sit down, sir?”

“Not yet; I must see your dairy.  I have not seen it for years, and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter,” said the squire, looking politely unconscious that there could be any question on which he and Mrs. Poyser might happen to disagree.  “I think I see the door open, there.  You must not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your cream and butter.  I don’t expect that Mrs. Satchell’s cream and butter will bear comparison with yours.”

“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure.  It’s seldom I see other folks’s butter, though there’s some on it as one’s no need to see—­the smell’s enough.”

“Ah, now this I like,” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round at the damp temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door.  “I’m sure I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter and cream came from this dairy.  Thank you, that really is a pleasant sight.  Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of damp:  I’ll sit down in your comfortable kitchen.  Ah, Poyser, how do you do?  In the midst of business, I see, as usual.  I’ve been looking at your wife’s beautiful dairy—­the best manager in the parish, is she not?”

Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waistcoat, with a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion of “pitching.”  As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by the side of a withered crab.

“Will you please to take this chair, sir?” he said, lifting his father’s arm-chair forward a little:  “you’ll find it easy.”

“No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs,” said the old gentleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door.  “Do you know, Mrs. Poyser—­sit down, pray, both of you—­I’ve been far from contented, for some time, with Mrs. Satchell’s dairy management.  I think she has not a good method, as you have.”

“Indeed, sir, I can’t speak to that,” said Mrs. Poyser in a hard voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire.  Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn’t going to sit down, as if she’d give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver.  Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair.