in' dress. You must get acquainted
together, and the sooner the better. She's regular rampagous wi'
hunger."

"Would you help me in with my box, Mrs. Rocliffe?" asked Mehetabel.
"Jonas set it down by the door, and if I can get that upstairs I'll
change my dress at once, and make the fire, clean the floor, wind
up the clock, and feed the hog."

"I've such a terrible crick in my back, I dussn't do it," answered
Sarah Rocliffe. "Why, how much does that there box weigh? I wonder
Jonas had the face to put it in the cart, and expect Clutch to draw
it. Clutch didn't like it now, did he?"

"But how can I get my box in and carried up? Jonas is with the
horse, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, he is minding the horse. Clutch must be made comfortable,
and given his hay. I'll be bound you and Jonas have been eatin'
and drinkin' all day, and never given Clutch a mouthful, nor washed
his teeth with a pail o' water."

"I'm sure Joe Filmer looked to the horse at the Ship. He is very
attentive to beasts."

"On ordinary days, and when nuthin' is goin' on, I dare say--not
when there's weddin's and ducks and green peas goin' for any who
axes for 'em."

The report that ducks and green peas were to form an element of
the entertainment had been told everywhere before the day of the
marriage, and it was bitterness to Mrs. Rocliffe to think that
"on principle," as she put it, she had been debarred from eating
her share.

"Ducks and green peas!" repeated she. "I s'pose you don't reckon on
eating that every day here, no, nor on Sundays, no, not even at
Christmas. 'Taint such as we in the Punch-Bowl as can stuff
ourselves on ducks and green peas. Green peas and ducks we may
grow--but we sells 'em to the quality."

After some consideration Mrs. Rocliffe relented sufficiently to
say, "I don't know but what Samuel may be idlin'; he mostly is.
I'll go and send my son Samuel to help you with the box."

Then with a surly "Good-night" the woman withdrew.

After a couple of minutes, she returned: "I've come back," she
said, "to tell you that if old Clutch is off his meat--and I
shouldn't wonder if he was--wi' neglect and wi' drawing such a
weight--then you'd best set to work and make him gruel. Jonas
can't afford to lose old Clutch, just becos he's got a wife." Then
she departed again.

Jonas was indeed in the stable attending to the horse. He had,
moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a
trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her