As if to ensure her good graces, his first act was to step across the floor, and with one strong brown hand lift from the chimney-hook the heavy broth-pot, on the handle of which the girl had just laid both of hers.
'Good for you, Evan Evans; may you be always as ready,' said she, showing her firm white teeth, and hastening to ladle out the broth the boiled beef had supplied.
'Always ready for a good supper,' was the prompt reply. 'One does not always get broth every day.'
Meat was not often boiled for broth then on small farms. Indeed, was never cooked except on rare occasions.
At that moment Mrs. Edwards came in from what we may call the 'dairy' in the rear.
'I did not expect you to-night,' said she, 'but it is well you are here.'
'Sure and indeed, ma'am, you would not have me come on a Friday, and I was not myself like to come on a Saturday, and I thought you would want me before the Monday, look you.'
'Why not Saturday?' interrupted Rhys, waiting impatiently for his broth.
'Sure and "Saturday's flitting is a short sitting" my Irish grandmother was used to say, and she was a wise woman,' answered the young man gravely.
Superstition was so widespread and general, that no one uttered a word of doubt or dissent to either proposition, but Mrs. Edwards remarked, ''Deed and it's quite as well you came. We have lost a week, and it's time some of the roots was out of the ground. It will be soft for the digging after the rain.'