"All you can ax that I knaw, I'll tell 'e, though Joan shut her thots purty close most times. Us awnly got side views of her mind, and them not often."
"The man," he said. "Tell me all—every-thin' you can call home—all what her said of him."
"Fust she thot a 'mazin' deal 'bout en," explained the farmer; "then time made her mind get stale of en, an' she begin to see us was right. He sent money—a thousand pound, an' I—poor fool—thot Joan weern't mistook at fust. But 'twas awnly conscience money; an' now Thomasin's the better for't by will."
But this sensational statement was not appreciated, Joe's mind being elsewhere.
"You never heard the name of en?"
"Awnly the christening name, as was 'Jan.' You may have heard tell she got a letter the night she passed. Us found the coverin' under the table next day, an' Mary comed across the letter itself in her pocket at the last."
"'Tis that I be comed for. If you could tell so much as a word or two out of it, Mary? They said you burned it an' the crowner was mighty angry, but I thot as p'raps you'd looked at it all the same, awnly weern't pleased to say so."
"No," she answered. "Tis true I found a letter, an' I might a read some of it if I would, but I judged better not. 'Tweern't fair to her like."
"Was theer anything else as shawed anything 'bout en?"
"No—awnly a picksher of a ship he painted for her. I burned that tu; an'
I'd a burned his money if I could. He painted her—I knaw that much. She
tawld us wan night—a gert picksher near as large as life. He took it to
Lunnon—for a shaw, I s'pose."