en he wouldn't break out.
To-night he no sooner gets inside his own door than says he with a
dry sort of a chuckle:

"Powerful fine sermon, this evenin'. A man like that makes you
_think_."

"Ch't!" says Sally, tossing her bonnet on to the easy chair and
groping about for the tinder-box.

"Sort of doctrine that's badly needed in Saltash," says he. "But I'd
ha' bet 'twould be wasted on you. Well, well, if you can't
understand logic, fit and fetch supper, that's a good soul!"

"Ch't!" said Sally again, paying no particular attention, but
wondering what the dickens had become of the tinder-box.
She couldn't find it on the chimney-piece, so went off to fetch the
kitchen one.

When she came back, there was my lord seated in the easy chair--that
was hers by custom--and puffing away at his pipe--a thing not allowed
until after supper. You see, he had collared the tinder-box when he
first came in, and had hidden it from her.

Sal lit the lamp, quiet-like. "I s'pose you know you're sittin' 'pon
my best bonnet?" said she.

This took him aback. He jumped up, found the bonnet underneath
him sure enough, and tossed it on to the table. "Gew-gaws!" said he,
settling himself again and puffing. "Gew-gaws and frippery!
That man'll do good in this country; he's badly wanted."

Sal patted the straw of her bonnet into something like shape and
smoothed out the ribbons. "If it'll make you feel like a
breadwinner," said she, "there's a loaf in the bread-pan. The cold
meat and pickles are under lock and key, and we'll talk o' them
later." She fitted the bonnet on and began to tie the strings.

"You don't tell me, Sarah, that you mean to go gadding out at this
time of the evening?" cries he, a bit chapfallen, for he knew she
carried the keys in an under-pocket beneath her skirt.

"And you don't suppose," answers she, "that I can spare the time to
watch you play-actin' in my best chair? No, no, my little man!
Sit there and amuse yourself: what _you_ do don't make a ha'porth of
odds. But there's others to be considered, and I'm going to put an
end to this nonsense afore it spreads."

The time of the year, as I've told you, was near about midsummer,
when a man can see to read print out-of-doors at nine o'clock.
Service over, the preacher had set out for a stroll across the
hayfields towards Trematon, to calm himself with a look at the
scenery and the war-ships in the Hamoaze and the line of prison-hulks
below, where in t