“There was a great deal of rejoicing,” Malory continued, “in the Pennistan household over the engagement. Nancy and her husband came for a three days’ visit. I was glad to see my Daphnis and Chloe again, and to discover that all the sweets of marriage which I had described to Ruth were living realities in these two. They seemed insatiable for each other’s presence. Their attitude towards Ruth and Leslie was parental; nay, grandfatherly; nay, ancestral! Experience and patronage transpired through the cracks of their benison. Ruth was annoyed, but I was greatly amused.
“It had been arranged that the wedding should take place almost immediately. Why delay? I am sure that Leslie Dymock was hungering to get his wife away to his own home. And Ruth? She accepted every happening with calm, avoided me—I supposed that she was shy, and left her to herself—was gentle and affectionate to Leslie, took a suitable interest in the preparations of her wedding. I was, on the whole, satisfied. I did not believe that she was much in love with Leslie Dymock, in fact I was inclined to think that she regretted her handsome blackguard, but I believed that her evident fondness for Dymock would develop with their intimacy, and that the bud would presently break out into the full-blown rose.
“As for him, he would not have exchanged his present position with an archangel.
“I asked Amos what had become of Westmacott.
“‘Over at his place, like a wild beast in a cave,’ he replied with a grin.
“‘Is he coming to the wedding?’
“‘Oh, ay, if he chooses.’
“I now became concerned for my own future. Life at the Pennistans’ without Ruth would, I foresaw, be less agreeable although not actually unbearable. She and I had worked together in a harmony I could scarcely hope to reproduce with the hired girl who was to take her place, for you must realise that although I have only reported to you our conversations on the more human subjects of life, our everyday existence had been made up of hours of happy work and mutual interest. I seriously thought of leaving, and said as much to Dymock.
“Some days afterwards that good young man came to me.
“‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, ‘of your leaving and of your not liking, as you told me, to go away from the Weald till after next spring. Now I’ve a proposal to make to you,’ and he told me of a cottage near his own place, with five acres, enough to support hens, pigs, and a cow, whose tenant had recently died. He suggested to me that I should rent this small holding for a year. ‘And you can walk over o’ nights, and have a bit of supper with us,’ he added hospitably.