"Not an hour ago, when all was peace and I had been able to tell the household I found myself well again, and was turning over an advertisement for a new horseman, they crept before me, hand in hand—like a brace of children."
"Who did?"
"Why, Susan and that blasted sarpent, Palk."
"Palk a sarpent!"
"Do, for God's sake, shut up and listen, and don't keep interrupting. They came afore me. And Palk said that, owing to a wonderful bit of news, he hoped we was going to part friends and not enemies, though he was afraid as he might have to give me another jar. Then I told him to drop my darter's hand that instant moment and not come mountybanking about when he ought to be at work; and then he said that Susan had taken him, and they hoped afore long to be married!"
"Mercy on us, Joe!"
"That's what I heard this morning. And the woman put in her oar when I asked Palk if he was drunk. She said she loved him well and dearly, and hoped that I wouldn't fling no cold water over her great joy, or be any the less a kind father to her. Got it all by heart of course."
"What a world! That's the last thing ever I should have thought to fall out."
"Or any other sane human. It's a wicked outrage in my opinion and done, of course, for revenge, because I cast the man away—cunning devil!"
"Don't you say that. You must take a higher line, Joe. Soosie-Toosie's a good woman, and you always said Thomas was a good man."