"Yas, I do. Your Alferd was over to Vicarage las' Sunday. To-day, he's traipsin' the Park with Miss Fancy Broomfield."
From her pronunciation of the name, it was quite evident that the young person in question was not what diplomats call gratissima to Mrs. Mucklow. And the sniff that followed was aggressive. Mrs. Yellam poured out a large cup of tea with an impassive face. Inwardly, she winced. Alfred had kept his plans to himself, doing so, moreover, in accordance with advice well rubbed into him ever since he had affairs of his own to attend to. But a mother—and such a mother—might be deemed an exception to a golden rule. Mrs. Yellam said calmly:
"Is he? Who is your Rose walking out wi'?"
The question was ungrammatical and unkind. Rose, large, plain, and red-headed, sighed for swains who did not walk out with her. She might have been comfortably married to Alfred at this minute. The older families in Nether-Applewhite fancied intermarriage, much to the exasperation of Sir George Pomfret. And so far—the stock being exceptionally sound—no great evil had come of this. Within the year Prudence Rockley had married her first cousin. In Mrs. Mucklow's opinion marriages between near of kin were preferable to alliances with outsiders. Town girls, she regarded, not without reason, as hussies.
"My Rose be a good girl, and well you knows it."
"Maybe you have something agen this Fancy Broomfield? If so, Jane, out wi' it."
"Townbred girls be all alike."
Mrs. Yellam replied tranquilly:
"I bain't an upholder o' they, but I keep faith in my Alferd's good sense and judgment. He's walked out wi' a baker's dozen o' maids afore this 'un, and why not? I've allers told Alferd to pick an' choose."
Mrs. Mucklow attacked the buttered toast almost viciously.