“Well, he gave me a wild rabbit what he’d caught, to keep with my tame one—and it’s living.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Frances, very detached and ironic.

“Well, it is! He reckoned he’d take me to Ollerton Feast, but he never did. Look here, he took a servant from the rectory; I saw him.”

“So he ought,” said Frances.

“No, he oughtn’t! and I told him so. And I told him I should tell you—an’ I have done.”

Click and snap went a nut between her teeth. She sorted out the kernel, and chewed complacently.

“It doesn’t make much difference,” said Frances.

“Well, ’appen it doesn’t; but I was mad with him all the same.”

“Why?”

“Because I was; he’s no right to go with a servant.”