“No, Henry, thank you.”
He laughed softly.
“Make a nice rabbit hutch,” he suggested. He knew that Phœbe was too good a gardener to love rabbits.
“No doubt.” Her mind was not on the man before her.
“Or perhaps,” Henry was quite ready for a resting “spell”; cradling oats is not a sinecure. “Or perhaps,” he speculated more seriously, “you’re thinkin’ o’ raisin’ guineas; they say they’s heaps o’ money in guineas.”
Phœbe became suddenly aware of Henry.
“No, Henry, not guineas—nothing so useful and domesticated and industrious as guineas. Breathe it not to others, Henry; I shall keep this place as a home for indigent drakes who have lost their pia mater. But keep it dark, Henry.”
“Hey?” called Henry, to whom all this was dark enough at the outset. But she had vanished into the house; and he knew enough of the sting of her Celtic tongue not to delay longer on the oats.
The next morning at breakfast Mrs. Wells capitulated handsomely.