had happened at the shop-of-all-sorts; and he wasn't blind
to the joy that looked out of her little eyes. She didn't even say she was
sorry for him, but just answered as straight as he had and confessed how
she'd offered herself within the hour to Martin Ball and found that his
views were very much altered and he didn't want her no more. "And God
knows best, father," finished up Jane.

"So it's generally believed," he answered. "And nobody can prove it ain't
true. For my part, you was always balanced in my mind very tender against
that changeable woman, and nought but a hair turned the balance her way.
'Tis a strange experience for me not to have my will, and I feel disgraced
in a manner of speaking; but, if I've lost her, I've gained you,
seemingly. And I shan't squeak about it, nor yet go courting no more; and
I'll venture to bet, dear Jane, you won't neither."

"Never--never," she swore to him. "I hate every man on earth but you,
dad."

She closed his eyes and tied up his chin twenty years after, and when she
reigned at Wych Elm, she found but one difficulty--to get the rising
generation of men to bide under her rule and carry on.

No. IV

THE OLD SOLDIER

A woman may be just as big a fool at sour seventy as she was at sweet
seventeen. In fact, you can say about 'em, that a woman's always a woman,
so long as the breath bides in her body; and my sister, Mary, weren't any
exception to the rule. You see, there was only us two, and when my parents
died, I married, and took on Brownberry Farm and my sister, who shared and
shared alike with me, took over our other farm, by the name of Little
Sherberton, t'other side the Dart. A very good farmer, too, she was--knew
as much as I did about things, by which I mean sheep and cattle; while she
was still cleverer at crops, and I never rose oats like she did at Little
Sherberton, nor lifted such heavy turnips as what she did.

Mary explained it very simply.

"You'm just so clever as me," she said, "but you'm not so generous. You
ain't got my powers of looking forward, and you hate to part with money in
your pocket for the sake of money that's to be there. In a word, you're
narrow-minded, and don't spend enough on manure, Rupert; and till you put
it on thicker and ban't feared of paying for lime, you'll never get a root
fit to put before a decent sheep."

There was truth in it I do believe, for I was always a bit prone, like my
father before me, to starve the lan