She wanted it for several reasons—because she liked him and knew he was no fortune-hunter, because she wished to see Lucy settled before Joel came back—she had other plans for Joel—because she was sorry for the girl's disappointment: she knew what blighted hopes felt like when the heart was young. Though she would not have scrupled to add disappointment to disappointment had it suited her purpose, in this case she was at one with her great-grand-daughter, and determined to bring about that which they both desired.
When tea was finished Peter bent over Lucy's chair to read her cup.
"Health and wealth and happiness," he said.
"I've heard it many times," said she, with a light laugh. "I've got the first, and dreamed of the last, but I've still to catch a glint of the other. Read Jan's," she handed him the old man's mug. "Perhaps you'll find something worth having there."
"Nowt but the rheumatics has ever come out o' my cup," said Jan gravely.
"But I see six white horses and a coach," replied Peter.
"Do 'ee now?" Jan put his finger into the empty mug and sorted the tea-leaves one by one, counting them aloud. "So there be," he said.
Lucy began to wash up the dishes, childishly pleased to bare her round, white arms, when there was someone to see them.
Throughout the meal, which had been a merry one, they had tacitly ignored the rain, although it was still coming down—as they say in the dales—whole watter. Now they were suddenly silent. But on the slates it clattered, on the walls it slashed, on the ground it spluttered, through the air it fell hissing. Over and above it the beck thundered.
Mistress Lynn sat upright in her bed, and listened with an expression of awe upon her grim old countenance; Lucy drew nearer to Peter, her eyes wide and panic-stricken; Jan Straw left the ingle.