"Oh, yes," said Madge, "just as he can do all the other things Harry does a great deal better than he. But it keeps him busy and happy, so we let him go on."
"Just as if you didn't cry every night to feed your old pigs!" retorted her husband.
Madge laughed. "Yes, I am rather a fool about the poor things, even if they aren't so attractive as they were in June. You should have seen them, so pink and tiny and sweet, standing up on their hind legs and wiggling their noses at you! No one could help wanting to feed them, they were so helpless and confident of receiving a shower of manna from above. I know just how the Almighty felt when he fed the Israelites."
"Better manna than manners," murmured Harry, and for a while there was a profound silence.
"What about a stroll before tea?" presently suggested the happy farmer.
"I should like to," said James. "We'll have to make it short, though."
"Very well. What about the others—the fair swine-herd?"
"I think not," answered the person referred to, smiling up at him. "I took quite a long walk before lunch, you know."
"Oh, yes," said Harry, blushing for no apparent reason. "Beatrice?"
Beatrice preferred to stay with Madge.