"The harder you work, the more he'll want you to bide at home," she said. "Not that I mind you working. All the best sort work—I know that."
"I must work—no credit to me. I'm like father there. I ban't comfortable if I don't get through a good lump of work in the day."
She looked at him with large admiration.
"Where's Mr. Baskerville gone to?"
"To Bideford for the wrestlin' matches. He always stands stickler when there's a big wrestlin'. Such a famous man he was at it—champion of Devon for nine years. He retired after he was married. But now, just on his seventieth birthday, he's as clever as any of 'em. 'Twas his great trouble, I do believe, that neither me nor Ned ever shaped well at it. But we haven't got his weight. We take after my mother's people and be light built men—compared to father."
"Pity May weren't a boy," said Milly. "She's got weight enough."
"Yes," he admitted. "She's the very daps of father. She'll be a whacker when she grows up. 'Tis a nuisance for a woman being made so terrible beamy. But there 'tis—and a happier creature never had to walk slow up a hill."
Silence fell for a while between them.
"We must wait and hope," she declared at last. "I shan't change, Rupert—you know that."
"Right well I know it, and more shan't I."