A coal, crashing suddenly from the grate to the hearth, aroused John. He looked at the clock and put down his book.
"Bedtime I think, missus," he said.
Mary began to fold her work. Now was the time when he must speak. He must really. Even if he had very little to say about most things, at least he must have some sort of an opinion about this.
John was poking the largest lumps of coal out of the fire. It was his favourite habit of economy.
Mary could bear it in silence no longer.
"Well, John," she remarked as casually as she could, "what do you think of it? How far have you got?"
"Page 121," said John and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the fender, he went upstairs to bed.
Next morning Mary walked up to Littledale to see the foreman's latest baby. Coming home through the fields she recovered for the first time from her husband's rebuff of the previous night.
Really John's stupidity mattered very little on a morning like this. She wanted to race with the wind, to jump, to shout, to sing.
The freshly turned ploughland gleamed purple in the sunlight. A faintly pink haze caressed the stubble.