"I do not see it any longer—I know what I wanted to know. Let us go back to the Court."
CHAPTER XVII.
"Well, Het, what do you say to a bit o' news that'll wake you up?" said Farmer Vincent one fine morning in the month of May to his young wife.
Hetty was in her dairy with her sleeves turned up busily skimming cream. She turned as her husband spoke and looked up into his face. He was a roughly built man on a huge scale. He chucked her playfully under the chin.
"There are to be all kinds of doings," he said. "I've just been down to the village and the whole place is agog. What do you say to an election, and who do you think is to be put up for the vacant seat?"
"I don't know much about elections, George," said Hetty, turning again to her cream. "If that's all it won't interest me."
"Ay, but 'tain't all—there's more behind it."
"Well, do speak out and tell the news. I'm going down to see aunt presently."
"I wonder how many days you let pass without being off to see that aunt of yours," said the farmer, frowning perceptibly. "Well, then, the news is this. Squire and Mrs. Awdrey and a lot of company with them came back to the Court this evening. Squire and Madam have been in foreign parts all the winter, and they say that Squire's as well as ever a man was, and he and madam mean to live at the Court in future. Why, you have turned white, lass! What a lot you think of those grand folks!"