"I can't find words to thank you," declared Jeremy, "but I'll show it in deeds, Jacob. To have my own trap and drive about in the open among my neighbours! It's almost too good to be true."
They turned to Margery and praised her husband when he was gone.
"It's wonderful how life opens out after you're married," said Jane.
"It does," admitted Margery. "It opens but, as you say, Jane, and shows you all sorts of things you never dreamed. And it also shows how every little bit of happiness carries its own worm in the bud. However, you'll find that out for yourself. You know Owley Cot well enough of course?"
"Loved it ever since I was a child," answered Jane. "Mr. Elvin's old mother lived there; and when she died, a game-keeper and his wife was there for a bit; then Miss Marydrew rented it from your husband."
"And nobody ever had a better tenant. She did her part and Jacob did his, and I did mine, which was to plant a lot of roses and nice flowers in the garden. You'll find it perfect, for she had a trick to make everything about her look flame new all the time. A very clever woman and Joe Elvin will miss her, for she was one of the hopeful ones, like her old father, and cheered the man up. He's a grizzler—born so, yet no call to be. He's had his share of luck and Jacob says he's pretty snug, but his health's bad."
"I remember Owley Cot," declared Jeremy. "I used to go up to Owley, to kill rats with my ferret when I was a boy, and I was very friendly with Joe's son, Robert."
"Robert's going to make a better man than Joe," said Margery. "A very nice boy, and seeing his father's so melancholy, he's fought shy of it, and takes a bright view. Jacob says he'll be a tip-top farmer presently."
"Joe used to be kind to me, because he respected mother such a lot—and father," declared Jeremy.
"He's kind to everybody in his mournful way," answered Margery; "but he'd always sooner go to a funeral than a wedding, and when he opens the paper of a morning, so Robert tells me, he always says, 'And who are the lucky ones?' Then you find he's reading the deaths. Yet nobody would hate dying more than him."