boiling for the meal. It was the sight of Dinah Brome at the
head of affairs, however, which drew his attention from these details.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" Depper said, and paused, door in hand, on his own
freshly-washed step.

"You wipe your feet, afore you come in," said Mrs Brome, masterful as
ever. "Here's yer supper ready. I ain't a-goin' to ate it along of you,
Depper; but I ha' got a ward or two to say to you afore I go."

Depper entered, closed the door behind him, sat down, hat on head, in
the freshly-polished chair by the hearth; he fixed his eyes, his mouth
fallen open, on the fine form of Dinah standing before him, with hands
on hips, arms akimbo, and the masterful gleam in her eyes.

"Depper, yer old woman's a-dyin'" Dinah said.

"Marcy on us! Ye don't tell me that! Kind o' piney, like, fer the las'
six months, my missus ha' bin', but----"

"Now she's a-dyin'. D'ye think I ha'n't got the right use o' my senses,
arter all these years? Wheer ha' yer own eyes been? Look at 'er! No
better'n a skeercrow of a woman, under yer very nose! She's a-dyin', I
tell ye. And, Depper, what du I come here to find? I find a bare
cupboard and a bare board. Not a mite o' nouragement i' th' house, sech
as a pore suff'rin' woman like Car'line's in need of."

"Car'line's a pore manager, as right well you know, Dinah. Ha'n't I
telled ye----?"

"You ha' telled me--yes. But have you played th' husban's part? You ha'
telled me--and I ha' put the fault o' yer poverty home on ter yer pore
missus's shoulders. But since I been here, I ha' seen 'er crawlin' on
'er han's and knees to wait on you, wi' yer fourses i' th'
harvest-field. I ha' heered her manderin' on, 'let things be comf'table
for Depper,' and let her fend for herself. And I can see with half an
eye the bute is on t'other fut, Depper. And this here is what I'm
a-goin' ter say to you, and don't you make no mistake about it: I'm yer
wife's woman while she want me, and none o' yours."

Depper was a small, well-made man, with a curling, grizzled head, and a
well-featured face. It is possible that in his youth the word 'dapper'
may have applied to him; a forgotten fact which perhaps accounted for
his nickname. He gazed with an open mouth and puzzled, blear eyes at
the woman before him.

"You and me," he said slowly, with an utterance suspiciously slow and
thick--"you and me ha' kep' comp'ny, so to speak, fer a sight o' years,
Dinah. We never had no fallin's out, this man