h of it and the quality of the cake so hearty that once or
twice us caught ourselves up.

"Dammy!" said Arthur, "we'm going it, Mary. Us had better draw in a
thought, or our little games will end in earnest."

"Not on my side," I said, and that vexed him I believe, for a man's a man.
However, I reminded him of his first, and that always daunted his spirit,
so he soon went off with his tail between his legs.

But all the same, I couldn't help contrasting Arthur with Gregory, and
though Greg might be called the more important and prosperous man, yet
there was always a barrier he wouldn't pass, while Arthur, though brooding
by nature, could get about himself now and again, and in them rare
moments, you felt there was a nice, affectionate side to him that only
wanted encouraging.

It was three days after that tea and his praises of my hand with a plum
cake, that I found myself left.

It came like a bolt from the blue sky, as they say, and I was messing
about in my little garden full of an offer I'd got to let my cottage, or
sell it, and wondering if I should tell Gregory, when the man himself came
in the gate and slammed it home after him. And I see when I looked in his
determined eyes that the time had come. His jaws were working, too, under
his beard, and I reckoned he'd got wind of Arthur and was there to say the
word at last. And I was right enough about Arthur, but cruel wrong about
the word.

"I'll ax you to step in the house," he said. "I've heard something."

"I hope it's interesting news," I answered. "Come in by all means,
Gregory. Always welcome. Will you drink a glass of fresh milk?"

For milk was his favourite beverage.

"No," he answered. "I don't take no milk under this roof no more."

So then I began to see there was something biting the man, though for my
life I couldn't guess what.

However, he soon told me.

He sat down, took off his hat, wiped his brow, blew his nose and then
spoke.

"I've just been having a tell with Minnie Parable--old Parable's
daughter," he said.

"Have you?" I said. "Would you call him old?"

"Be damned to his age," he answered. "That's neither here nor there. But
this I'd wish you to understand. I've respected you for a good few years
now."

"Why not?" I asked, rather short, for I didn't like his manner.

"No reason at all till half an hour agone," he replied. "But now I hear
that, while you well knew my feelings and my hopes and might have trusted
a man like