here, there! That's you; that's my own flesh and blood. I'll
warrant that you'll pick holes in everything your mother says, if you
can, Stephen. You are just like your father for that; take anybody's
part but mine. Whilst I am speaking and talking and trying and slaving
away for your good, you are waiting to catch me out in that way. So you
are in her class, but 'tis what HER people would CALL marrying out of
her class. Don't be so quarrelsome, Stephen!'

Stephen preserved a discreet silence, in which he was imitated by his
father, and for several minutes nothing was heard but the ticking of the
green-faced case-clock against the wall.

'I'm sure,' added Mrs. Smith in a more philosophic tone, and as a
terminative speech, 'if there'd been so much trouble to get a husband in
my time as there is in these days--when you must make a god-almighty of
a man to get en to hae ye--I'd have trod clay for bricks before I'd ever
have lowered my dignity to marry, or there's no bread in nine loaves.'

The discussion now dropped, and as it was getting late, Stephen bade his
parents farewell for the evening, his mother none the less warmly
for their sparring; for although Mrs. Smith and Stephen were always
contending, they were never at enmity.

'And possibly,' said Stephen, 'I may leave here altogether to-morrow;
I don't know. So that if I shouldn't call again before returning to
London, don't be alarmed, will you?'

'But didn't you come for a fortnight?' said his mother. 'And haven't you
a month's holiday altogether? They are going to turn you out, then?'

'Not at all. I may stay longer; I may go. If I go, you had better say
nothing about my having been here, for her sake. At what time of the
morning does the carrier pass Endelstow lane?'

'Seven o'clock.'

And then he left them. His thoughts were, that should the vicar permit
him to become engaged, to hope for an engagement, or in any way to think
of his beloved Elfride, he might stay longer. Should he be forbidden to
think of any such thing, he resolved to go at once. And the latter, even
to young hopefulness, seemed the more probable alternative.

Stephen walked back to the vicarage through the meadows, as he had come,
surrounded by the soft musical purl of the water through little
weirs, the modest light of the moon, the freshening smell of the dews
out-spread around. It was a time when mere seeing is meditation, and
meditation peace. Stephen was hardly philosopher enough