“Ah,” groaned Mrs. Hardy, “meanin’ to say as now she’d gone up’ards to glory she couldn’t be expected to be took up wi’ spoons an’ sich like.”
“’Twas the very thing as Mary did think herself, Kate my dear,” responded Betty solemnly. “She come to I next mornin’, an’ she did say them very words, but I knowed better; I knowed that there charm what I gived her was one as never failed. ‘Not at all, Mary,’ says I. ‘Your mother’s sperrit warn’t a-tellin’ ’ee nought o’ the kind. It p’inted up’ards, ye say? Well then, take my advice an’ go straight home and search the thatch.’”
“Well, to be sure!” ejaculated her listeners; even the taciturn Jim was constrained to express some interest.
“Did she find ’em?” he asked quickly.
“I should think she did find ’em, Jim. She did find every one as safe as anything, tied up in an old stocking, jist in the very spot what her mother had p’inted out.”
This climax seemed to impress Jim even more than his mother; he leaned forward, his great red hands twitching as they rested one on each knee.
“I d’ ’low, Aunt Betty, if ye could do that, you could do anythin’. Can’t ye gi’ me summat as ’ll get the better o’ this here chap?”
“Well, Jim, I could give ’ee a love charm, but as you do tell I there’s no gettin’ near your young lady, I don’t see how you be to indooce her to wear it.”
“That’s true!” put in Jim’s mother dolefully. “There, I will say it do seem cruel hard. They were as good friends I do assure ’ee as a young man and a young lady need be. They’ve a-bin walkin’—how long have you an’ Chrissy bin a-walkin’, Jim?”
“Fifteen month,” growled Jim gloomily.