Susan Kate snorted instead of sniffing.
"She's the new girl at the Spinney Farm," she answered.
"Oh!" I said. "I didn't know they had a new girl at the Spinney Farm. Where's Rebecca got to?"
"'Becca's mother," replied Susan Kate, "was took ill very sudden, and 'Becca had to leave. So this here Lydia Lightowler come in her place. And I wish she'd stopped where she came from, wherever that may be!"
"Ah!" I said. "And what has Lydia Lightowler done, Susan Kate?"
Susan Kate, whose stormy eyes were fixed on something in vacancy, and who was twisting and untwisting her apron, looked as if she would like to deliver her mind to somebody.
"Well, it isn't right if a young man's been making up to a young woman for quite six months that he should start carrying on with another!" she burst out at last. "It's more than what flesh and blood can stand."
"Quite so, quite so, Susan Kate," I said. "I quite appreciate your meaning. So John Willie——"
"I had to go on an errand to the Spinney Farm last night," said Susan Kate; "to fetch a dozen of ducks' eggs it was, for the missis, and lo and behold, who should I come across walking in Low Field Lane but John William and Lydia Lightowler—a nasty cat! So when I saw them I turned and went another way, and when John William came home him and me had words, and this morning he wouldn't speak."
Here Susan Kate's tears began to flow afresh, and hearing the approach of her mistress she suddenly threw her apron over her head and rushed from the parlour, no doubt to have a good cry in some of the many recesses of the ancient farmstead. It was plain that Susan Kate's heart was fashioned of the genuine feminine stuff.