“Four years,” she replied.
“Her father hasn’t been dead long, then?” he asked.
“She was one year when he died.”
“Three years?”
“Yes, three years that he is dead—yes.”
Curiously quiet she was, almost abstracted, answering these questions. She looked at him again, with some maidenhood opening in her eyes. He felt he could not move, neither towards her nor away from her. Something about her presence hurt him, till he was almost rigid before her. He saw the girl’s wondering look rise in her eyes.
Tilly handed her the butter and she rose.
“Thank you very much,” she said. “How much is it?”
“We’ll make th’ vicar a present of it,” he said. “It’ll do for me goin’ to church.”
“It ’ud look better of you if you went to church and took th’ money for your butter,” said Tilly, persistent in her claim to him.