"Be off, can't you?" cried Mary. "I'm ashamed of you."
"Haw, haw," chuckled Mrs. Goudie. "Don't she peck at un fierce."
"Yes, Mary," and Mrs. Dale laughed, much amused. "I do think you're rather cruel to him."
"'Twill be t'other way roundabout one day, Mary, preaps."
Then Mary tossed her head and bustled at her work. "I ain't afeard o' that day, Mrs. Goudie. He isn't going the right way to win me, I can tell him. I hate his sly ways."
Mavis and the old charwoman thought that Mr. Druitt would win the prize in the end, and with a natural tendency toward match-making tacitly aided and abetted his queer courtship. Except for the disparity of years it seemed a desirable match. It was known that he had a tidy place, almost a farm, eight miles away on the edge of the down; and Mrs. Goudie, who confessed that she had merely encountered him higgling, said the tale ran that he was quite a warm man.
And thus Mary's little romance, announcing itself so abruptly and developing itself so slowly, brought still another new interest to Vine-Pits kitchen. It was something vivid and bright and even fantastic in the midst of solidly useful facts, like the strange flower that blooms on a roadside merely because some high-flying strong-winged bird has carelessly happened to drop a seed.
"What," thought Mavis, "can any of us do without love? And where should we be without the odd chances that bring love to us?"
XIV
Fat easy years came now after the hard and lean ones; and the Dales in the dual regions of home and trade were doing really well. Dale had a powerful decently-bred cob to ride; on Wednesdays, when he went into Old Manninglea for the Corn Market, he often wore a silk top-hat and always a black coat; and at all times he looked exactly what he was, an alert, industrious, straight-dealing personage who has risen considerably and who intends to rise still higher in the social scale.