“If here isn’t Mr Snell coming in alonger Pa,” said Agnetta, craning her neck to see out of the window. “He’s sure to stay to tea.” She immediately drew her chair up to the table and helped herself largely to jam.
“And of all evenings in the week I wish he hadn’t chosen this,” said Mrs Greenways. “Poking and meddling in other folks’ concerns. Now mind this, girls,—don’t you let on as if I wanted to keep Lilac, or was sorry she’s going. Do you hear?”
It did not at first appear, however, that this warning was necessary, for Joshua said no word of Lilac or her affairs; he seemed fully occupied in drinking a great deal of tea and discussing the events of the neighbourhood with the farmer, and it was not till the end of his meal that he looked round the table enquiringly, and asked the dreaded question.
“And what’s Lilac settled to do about going?”
“You know as much about that as we do, Mr Snell,” replied Mrs Greenways loftily.
“There’s no doubt,” continued the cobbler, fixing his eye upon her, “as how Mrs Leigh’s friend is going to get a prize in Lilac White. She’s only a child, as you once said, ma’am, but I know what her upbringing was: ‘As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined’. There’s the making of a thorough good servant in her. Well worth her wages she’ll be.”
“She’s been worth more to us already than ever I knew of, or counted on, till lately,” put in the farmer. “Just now, I met Benson, and says he: ‘You’re losing your dairymaid by what I hear, and I can but wish you as good a one.’”
“That’s not so easy,” said Joshua, shaking his head. “Good workers don’t grow on every bush. It’s a pity, too, just when your butter was getting back its name.”
“I’d half a mind,” said the farmer, “to offer the child wages to stop, but then I thought it wouldn’t be acting fair. She ought to have the chance of bettering herself in a place like that. If she goes she’s bound to rise, and if she stays she won’t, for I can’t afford to give her much.”
“And what’s your opinion, ma’am?” asked Joshua politely of Mrs Greenways.