"You mustn't say that. There's nobody like you to look after a sick man, Melinda, and I'm sure Miss King couldn't have done it very much better and steadier than you have. But perhaps it might be a clever thought to invite her up along. I dare say she'd make time to pay us a visit, if I told her as you and Soosie-Toosie were very wishful to make her acquaintance and gather in a bit of her far-reaching sense. She's always as willing as I am myself to throw a bit of light."
"Ax her to come then," said Mrs. Honeysett. "'Twill be a great blessing for me and Susan to go to school to her. And something to see a really wise creature in Buckland, because we'm such a lot of God-forsaken zanies here—men and women alike."
She rose breathing rather deeply.
"No tea, thank you," she said. "I've changed my mind. I'll go home and pray for the light of Ann King to fall on my dark road. And when she comes along, you ask her if she'll give a poor, weak-minded widow a little of her sense. Tell her I'm one of they women that thinks the moon be made of green cheese, will 'e? And say I believe in pixies, and charms for warts, and black witches and white witches and all that. And you can add that I was one of them idiots that always gave men credit for nice feeling and good sense and liked to believe the best about some men and stuck up for 'em, even when I heard 'em run down and laughed at. Tell her all that; and say as I'm going to give certain parties a rest in future, because, though a poor worm and not worthy to be seen alongside her, yet I've got my pride, like the cleverest of us. And give Lawrence Maynard father's message, Soosie, if you please."
"Come back, you silly gosling!" shouted Joe; but Melinda did not come back. He laughed very heartily, yet not loud enough for the departing woman to hear him.
"Lord! To think now!" he said. "I've took a proper rise out of her, eh?"
"You have," admitted Susan ruthfully. "And if you done it on purpose, it weren't a very clever thing to do. Melinda's fiery, but a good friend and a great admirer of yours, father. Now you've vexed her cruel."
"You never larn all there is to know about a female," he said. "I meant to get her wool off—just for a bit of honest fun; but I can't say as I ever understood she felt so deep how clever she was. She's a vain, dear creature."
"It weren't that," explained Susan. "She ain't vain, though she knows her worth, and so do everybody else know it; but what she is proud of, naturally, be your great fondness for her. She knows you put her first, and she knows you're a clever man and wouldn't put her first if there wasn't a reason. And her father be going to die presently and—and God knows what's in her thoughts, of course. And then to hear that Miss King be worth all the women you've ever seen in your life put together, and be the top flower of the bunch, and such a wonder as was never seen by mortal man—why, of course, Melinda took it to heart a bit. Who wouldn't?"
"You didn't," said Joe.