“What’s the clock-time?” he asked.
“Not quite certain. I set the clock by Jinny last Friday, but it stopped suddenly yesterday, when I was reading you St. Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians. Haven’t you heard it not striking?”
Caleb shook his head.
“Afeared Oi’m gooin’ deafish, dear heart. But we’ll know the clock-time on Friday,” he added philosophically. “And when Jinny comes she can read the letter likewise.”
But Martha was blushing. “No, no, not Jinny! She’s a young girl.”
“Thank the Lord for her lively face!” agreed Caleb.
“Maybe she oughtn’t to read a letter to a married woman,” explained Martha shyly, “being a girl without mother or sisters, brought up by her grandfather.”
“But Cousin Caroline wouldn’t write naught improper.”
“Of course not—but it mightn’t be proper for an orphan girl to read. Maybe it’s not even proper for you, and that’s why she addressed it to me.”
Caleb felt as bemused as before a Bundock witticism.