"I hope you won't ask her to marry you while my sister is alive."
"Nellie wouldn't leave Miss Yard, and 'twould be no gude my asking her."
"Do you think the farm will pay?" was Mrs. Drake's next question.
"We'll get a living out of it, sure enough," replied Sidney cheerfully. "The last folk left it in a pretty bad state—they let the bog get into the best field, and the whole place is vull of verm—but there's plenty of gude soil. 'Twill take a year to get straight, and after that we shall go ahead. Grandfather's past seventy, but he's vor ten hours a day yet."
"An example for some men," commented the lady, with a shrug of her shoulders towards the fly killer. "The finest man in the world—that's grandfather. There ain't hardly a job he can't do, whether 'tis man's work or woman's work."
"How old are you?"
"Past nineteen."
"Would you marry a girl older than yourself?"
"If her name wur Nellie Blisland, I would."
"I hope you will get on," said Mrs. Drake in her kindliest fashion. "You may come in any evening for a cup of coffee with the others, and tell your grandfather to stay to supper with you on Sundays after church."