"What is your good news, dear Mr. Benny?"
"You shall hear later on when I have told my wife."
More than an hour later, having dismissed her clients (for the last of whom she had to compose a love-letter, the first she had written in her life), Hester stepped across to the cottage to announce that her work was over and ask if she might now turn down the lamps and rake out the stove.
The Bennys' kitchen at first glance was uninhabited; and yet, as she opened the door, she had heard voices within. Dropping her eyes to a lower level, she halted on the threshold and would have withdrawn without noise. In the penumbra beyond the circle of the lamp and the white tablecloth Mr. and Mrs. Benny, Nuncey, and Shake were kneeling by their chairs on the limeash, giving thanks.
While Hester hesitated, the little man lifted his head, and, catching sight of her, sprang to his feet. "Step ye in, my dear, and join with us! For you, too, have news to hear and be thankful for."
"But tell me your own good news and let me first be thankful for that."
"Do'ee really feel like that towards us?" asked Nuncey, rising and coming forward with joy and eager love in her eyes.
"I ought to, surely, after these months of kindness."
"Well, then—but first of all I must kiss 'ee, you dear thing!—well, then, Dad's been offered Damelioc stewardship, and you're to be Mistress of the Widows' Houses, and we're all going to be rich as Creases for ever and ever, Amen!"
"Croesus, my dear—besides, we're going to be nothing of the sort," protested her father.