Then Abel Squires left him and hobbled off, and Ned was left to his pipe and his reflections, both which he chose to enjoy, not at his garden gate as usual, but at the bottom of the hill, outside Rishton Hall farmyard.
Before he had been there more than a few minutes, the event he was prepared for took place. Olivia Denison, pale, excited, tearful, yet radiant, came to the gate, looking out anxiously. Seeing Ned, she ran out to him with a cry.
“Oh, Mr. Mitchell,” she said, almost in a whisper, “I must ask you to forgive me. I had such unjust thoughts of you. I thought, until the night before last, that you meant to ruin Vernon, in spite of your promise.”
“Um,” said Ned; “you hadn’t much faith in your lover, now, had you, to think him capable of——”
“Hush! never mind that. You see, I must have felt at the bottom of my heart that he was really good. For I loved him all the time just the same.”
“That doesn’t follow at all. Women always go by contraries. The more of a villain a man is, the more a woman likes him. Look at the vicar here, and the way his wife sticks to him. And look at me, as honest a fellow as ever lived, and what do you think my wife cares for me or my affections? Not a single straw, I tell you.”
“Well,” said Olivia, smiling, “considering the small amount of affection you seem to waste on her, I think it’s just as well for her happiness that she is not dying for love of you.”
“Ah, you’re full of these new fangled notions about the equality of the sexes. Now, I say, men and women are different. The man does all the hard work, and even if he goes a little bit off the straight sometimes, it’s no more than he has a right to, provided he fills the mouths at home. The woman has nothing to do but look after the home and children, and mend their clothes and her husband’s. And if she can’t find time besides to be devoted to her husband, and to think him the finest fellow on earth in return for what he does for her, why, she ain’t worth her salt; that’s all. Now that’s my marriage code, Miss Denison, though I can see by your face it isn’t yours.”
“I really haven’t considered the subject much,” replied Olivia, demurely, but with a bright blush.
“You might do worse, though, than consider it, now that things have shaped themselves a bit,” said Ned, in a dry tone. “Our dear friend the vicar here is going to leave this country, in consideration of a certain little matter being hushed up—”