"I awften wonder as her hands doan't suffer by it," mused Libby.
"They do," she answered with cruel eagerness. "Feel mine."
She pressed her palms into his, considering that the opportunity permitted her so to do without any lack of propriety. And he held them and found them soft and cool, but a thought thin to his taste. She dropped her eyelids, and he looked at her long lashes and the thick rolls of dark hair on her head. Then his eyes ranged on. Her face was pretty, with a prim prettiness, but for the rest Margery wholly lacked her sister's physical splendours. No grand curves of bosom met Mr. Libby's little shifty eyes. The girl, indeed, was slight and thin.
He dropped her hand, and she, knowing by intuition the very matter of his mind, spoke. Her voice was the sweetest thing about her, though people often forgot that fact in the word it uttered. Margery had a bad temper and a shrewish tongue. Now the bells jangled, and she fell sharply upon her absent sister. She declared that she feared for her; that Sally was growing unmaidenly as a result of her outdoor duties. Then came a subtle cut—and Margery looked away from her listener's face as she uttered it.
"Her could put you in her pocket and not knaw you was theer. I've heard her say so."
Mr. Libby grew very red.
"Ban't the way for a woman to talk about any chap," he said.
"Coourse it ban't. That's it with she. So much working beside the men, an' killin' fowls, an' such like makes her rough an' rough-tongued. Though a very gude sister to me, I'm sure, an'——"
She had seen Sally approaching; hence this lame conclusion. The women's eyes met as the elder spoke.
"Wheer's faither to, Margery? Ah! Mr. Libby—didn't see you. You'm up here airly—helpin' her to waste time by the look of it."