modest too, as you can see off here in the North the
top of the golden-rod flower swing on its stem. You were slim as slim,
and yet there wasn't a corner on you; so soft and full and firm you
were, like the breast of a quail; and I mind me how the shine of your
cheeks was like the glimmer of an apple after you've rubbed it with
a bit of cloth. Well, there you stood in some sort of smooth, plain,
clingin' gown, a little bit loose and tumblin' at the throat, and your
pretty foot with a brown slipper pushed out, just savin' you from bein'
prim. That's why the men liked you--you didn't carry a sermon in your
waist-ribbon, and the Lord's Day in the lift o' your chin; but you had
a smile to give when 'twas the right time for it, and men never said
things with you there that they'd have said before many another maid.

"'Twas a thing I've thought on off here, where I've little to do but
think, how a lass like you could put a finger on the lip of such rough
tykes as Faddo, Jobbin, and the rest, keepin' their rude words under
flap and button. Do you mind how, when I passed you comin' in, I laid my
hand on yours as it rested on the dresser? That hand of yours wasn't
a tiny bit of a thing, and the fingers weren't all taperin' like a
simperin' miss from town, worked down in the mill of quality and got
from graftin' and graftin', like one of them roses from the flower-house
at Mablethorpe Hall--not fit to stand by one o' them that grew strong
and sweet with no fancy colour, in the garden o' the Book-in-Hand.
Yours was a hand that talked as much as your lips or face, as honest and
white; and the palm all pink, and strong as strong could be, and warmin'
every thread in a man's body when he touched it. Well, I touched your
hand then, and you looked at me and nodded, and went musin' into the
fire again, not seemin' to hear our gabble.

"But, you remember--don't you?--how Jobbin took to chaffin' of Lancy
Doane, and how Faddo's tongue got sharper as the time got on, and many
a nasty word was said of coast-guards and excisemen, and all that had
to do with law and gover'ment. Cuts there were at some of Laney's wild
doings in the past, and now and then they'd turn to me, saying what they
thought would set me girdin' Lancy too. But I had my own quarrel, and
I wasn't to be baited by such numskulls. And Lancy--that was a thing I
couldn't understand--he did no more than shrug his shoulder and call for
more ale, and wish them all good health and