Having no love of bloodshed, and having the luck to know nothing about it, some of us might be glad to turn into the white gate across the lane, leading into Old Applewood farm--if only the franklin would unlock it for anybody, in this war-time. But now he has been getting sharper and sharper, month after month; and hearing so much about sieges and battles, he never can be certain when the county of Kent will be invaded. For the last ten years, he has expected something of the sort at least; and being of a prudent mind, keeps a duck-gun heavily loaded. Moreover, Mabel is back again from exile with Uncle Catherow; and though the Grower only says that “she is well enough, for aught he knows,” when compliments are paid him, about her good looks, by the neighbourhood, he knows well enough that she is more than that; and he believes all the county to be after her. It is utterly useless to deny--though hot indignation would expand his horticultural breast at the thought--that he may have been just a little set up, by that trifling affair about Hilary. “It never were the cherries,” he says to himself, as the author of a great discovery; “aha, I seed it all along! Wife never guessed of it, but I did”--shame upon thee, Grower, for telling thyself such a dreadful “caulker!”--“and now we can see, as plain as a pikestaff, the very thing I seed, when it was that big!” Upon this he shows himself his thumb-nail, and feels that he has earned a glass of his ale. Mabel, on the other hand, is dreadfully worried by foreign affairs. She wants to know why they must be always fighting; and as nobody can give any other reason, except that they “suppose it is natteral,” she only can shake her head very sadly, and ask, “How would you like to have to do it?” They turn up the udders of the cows, to think out this great question, and the spurting into the pail stops short, and the cow looks round with great bountiful eyes, and a flat broad nose, and a spotted tongue, desiring to know what they are at with her. Is her milk not worth the milking, pray? This leads to no satisfaction whatever, upon behalf of any one; and Mabel, after a shiver or two, runs back to the broad old fireplace, to sit in the light and the smell of the wood, to spread her pointed fingers forth, and see how clear they are, and think. For Mabel’s hands are quite as pretty as if they were of true Norman blood, instead of the elder Danish cast; and she is very particular now not to have even a brown line under her nails.