“She laughs when there’s anything to laugh at,” said Kellock drily.
“The art is to find something to laugh at in everything,” explained Philander Knox. “And married people ought to practice that for their own salvation more than any.”
“How is it you ain’t married?” asked Robert Life. He was a man of few words and his wife worked in the glazing house with Medora.
“For the very good reason that my wife’s dead,” replied Mr. Knox. She’s left me for a better place and better company—a very excellent wife according to her lights, and I missed her.”
“I dare say you’ll find another here,” suggested a man who had come along a minute before. It was Henry Barefoot, Alice’s brother, the boilerman—an old sailor, who had drifted into the Mill when his service days were done.
“If I do, Henry, it won’t be your sister, so don’t throw out no hopes,” answered Knox.
Henry laughed.
“No man ever offered for her and no man ever will,” he declared. “Her pride is to do man’s work and she never will do woman’s—not if all the men in Devon went on their knees to her.”
“I’ve known others the same,” declared Philander. “They’re neuter bees, to say it kindly, and they hum so terrible sorrowful over their toil that the male give ’em a wide berth. Duty’s their watchword; and they do it in a way to make us common people hate the word.”
“That’s Alice. You know the sort seemingly,” said Henry.