“Yes,” she said, demurely, “Lucy be the name of my son’s wife.”
“Well, and a handsome couple they make, then,” declared the farmer, “and well-to-do, too, as it seems. They druv off in a ’ired fly, they did. They’ll be driving over here next and driving you off along wi’ ’em.”
Again Mrs. Collins closed her lips over a smile. “I’m too old for strange places,” said she quietly.
“Well, well,” said the farmer, “you’ve a son to be proud of anyways. He’s done well for himself.”
Then Mrs. Collins lifted her eyes. “He ’ave done what I meant ’im to do,” she said slowly, “and I am proud of him.”
She stood a moment looking round upon them all one after another, as though tasting her triumph. Then she shook hands with the farmer, nodded to the rest, and went away slowly to her lonely cottage against the downs.
The farmer smiled rather foolishly, looking after her. He knew the widow but little. “Rather a queer sort of a body, ain’t she?” said he questioningly.
“Aye, sir, that she be indeed,” put in Mrs. Cave, the ever-ready. “If you’d believe it, she’d sooner never ’ave seed that son of hers again than ’ave ’ad ’im marry a girl of his own station as wouldn’t have took ’im away from ’er to make a gentleman of ’im. There’s pride for ye!”
The farmer looked surprised, but the grocer—approaching at that moment, fresh from his responsible Sunday duties in his irreproachable black clothes—put in his word cheerily.
“Oh,” said he, “the women make him out too bad. ’E’s not a bad sort. ’E’ll be sure to come back and see her again.”