"Not his father." said Jarvis decidedly.
"He wasn't but his step-father, like, you know, Mr. Jarvis," remarked the woman beside him in a low voice.
"Well, he'd never ha' been hers, then. She wouldn't ha' had a word to say to him."
"I have seen a good—and wise woman too—with a dull husband," said Marion.
"You know you don't believe a word of it yourself, grannie," said still another voice.
"Besides," she went on without heeding the interruption, "in those times, I suspect, such things were mostly managed by the parents, and the woman herself had little to do with them."
A murmur of subdued indignation arose,—chiefly of female voices.
"Well, they wouldn't then," said Jarvis.
"He might have been rich," suggested Marion.
"I'll go bail he never made the money then," said Jarvis. "An old idget! I don't believe sich a feller 'ud ha' been let marry a woman like her—I don't."