"No, I didn't, because I know my place, father. I'm not so clever as Melinda. I'm a poor thing, though well intending. But Melinda's a fine thing and you know in your heart that a virgin woman, like Miss King, however clever she be, couldn't teach Melinda nothing about how to look after a man."
"Fun be thrown away on you creatures," said Joe. "You're terrible thick-headed where a joke's the matter, Soosie; but I did think as Melinda was brighter."
He turned to Palk, who had just entered for his tea. Thomas had heard the word thick-headed applied to Susan.
"Did you ever know a woman as could see a clever bit of fun, Tom?"
The horseman reflected.
"Women's fun ban't the same as ours," he answered. "No doubt they've got their own pattern of fun. But there ain't much time for Miss Stockman to practise laughing in this house."
"Ah! You can be so comical as any of us when you'm in a mind for it, Thomas," said his master.
CHAPTER XIX
LIGHT OF AUTUMN
Sent to find granite and bidden to choose a boulder that would split out, so that needful stone posts might be fashioned from it, Lawrence Maynard climbed the Beacon and loitered here and there, examining the great stones that heaved their backs or sides from the earth. For the master of Falcon Farm was a Venville man and claimed moor rights extending over stone and turbary.