“You think so, father?”
“I have seen something of the world.”
“And Ophelia?”
He answered with an oath.
Before them ran a straight road. On the left towered a beech-wood, where huge trunks pillared the gloom under the dense cloud of green. On the right ran meadows ablaze with gold. Set back from the road stood a red-tiled cottage under the shade of two poplars and an elm. The white garden-gate blinked between two yew-trees at the end of a path that ran over the meadow.
Judith drew up suddenly by the roadside and sprang down into the grass. She took a strap from under the seat and tethered the mare to a stake in the hedge. Her father watched her with no great interest. Judith had many poor folk on her charity, and such visits as this were by no means rare.
“Come with me,” she said, holding out her hand to him.
“Who lives yonder? Old Milton? You don’t want me on these occasions.”
“Yes, I do want you, father. Old Widow Milton was very grateful for the seeds you sent her.”
“Seeds I sent her?”