"Well, it'll never be so again, I hope," her husband assured her. Then he beamed about the table and added: "Not with all these young ladies here turning out to help like this! And that one," nodding at me, "a farmer's daughter herself! Where is your father living now, then?"
I told him the name of the village on the borderline between England and Wales.
"Not so far from here, then. Fifty miles off, perhaps. They'll be able to come down and see how you are getting on."
But here Vic broke in mischievously over her bread and cheese.
"Don't you worry, Mr. Price. She isn't going to bust herself with any homesickness. She don't want any more people. She's got off with a young man of her own down here already."
Here Elizabeth must needs turn her head sharply, to glance at me with an inquiry full of rebuke; uttering it aloud as well. "What young man?"
I took no notice of her. I looked at the others; the others who did not think (as she did) that I was far too fond of the whole Repulsive Sex.
"There was no young man—I mean, not in that sort of way at all—Vic's talking nonsense to tease me!" I assured the party, definitely.
"It was simply that Captain Holiday—whoever he is, he seems to think he can go anywhere and do anything—came into the shed where I was working and gave me a few tips about my work."
"Ah, Captain Holiday. Yes. It was him you were asking about, Vic," said Mr. Price, his blue eyes interested again. "Yes, he's our landlord here now that poor old Mr. Holiday's gone. Most of the property about belongs to him. The hospital, and your camp, and this farm, and all. A great interest he takes in all of it. All over it he was this morning. So he went and showed this young lady how to set about her job? Very obliging of him."