“No.”
“I thought they mout be, acause I have a sister myself. Not that I would make bold for to dror comparisons, even in my own mind, for she’s only a common woman—as common a one as ever you see. But few women rise above the common. Last Sunday, in yon village church, I heard the minister read out that one man in a thousand had he found, ‘but one woman in all these,’ he says, ‘have I not found,’ and I thinks to myself, ‘Right you are!’ But I warrant he never met your ladyship.”
A laugh, thinly disguised as a cough, escaped from Miss Carpenter.
“Young lady a-ketchin’ cold, I’m afeerd,” he said, with respectful solicitude.
“Do you think the rain will last long?” said Agatha politely.
The man examined the sky with a weather-wise air for some moments. Then he turned to Agatha, and replied humbly: “The Lord only knows, Miss. It is not for a common man like me to say.”
Silence ensued, during which Agatha, furtively scrutinizing the tenant of the chalet, noticed that his face and neck were cleaner and less sunburnt than those of the ordinary toilers of Lyvern. His hands were hidden by large gardening gloves stained with coal dust. Lyvern laborers, as a rule, had little objection to soil their hands; they never wore gloves. Still, she thought, there was no reason why an eccentric workman, insufferably talkative, and capable of an allusion to the pen of the poet, should not indulge himself with cheap gloves. But then the silk, silvermounted umbrella—
“The young lady’s hi,” he said suddenly, holding out the umbrella, “is fixed on this here. I am well aware that it is not for the lowest of the low to carry a gentleman’s brolly, and I ask your ladyship’s pardon for the liberty. I come by it accidental-like, and should be glad of a reasonable offer from any gentleman in want of a honest article.”
As he spoke two gentlemen, much in want of the article, as their clinging wet coats showed, ran through the gateway and made for the chalet. Fairholme arrived first, exclaiming: “Fearful shower!” and briskly turned his back to the ladies in order to stand at the edge of the veranda and shake the water out of his hat. Josephs came next, shrinking from the damp contact of his own garments. He cringed to Miss Wilson, and hoped that she had escaped a wetting.
“So far I have,” she replied. “The question is, how are we to get home?”