“Th’ Butlers’ll build a lot o’ kirks,” she remarked drily. “Wad I ha’ him? Well, I’ll answer him that when he asks me; but I’ll answer ye this now, Henry: They say th’ De’il likes to muck o’ a gurt lump, an’ th’ twa farms wad mak’ a pretty property; but a bonnie thing ’twad be to hear th’ love he’d whisper to th’ flawpin’ Lad-lass Harriet Stubbs! ‘My own four-hundred acre! My darlin’ twenty-score head o’ beasts! My lovely farm an’ house an’ first mortgage o’ three rows o’ cottages i’ Pateley Town!’ A bonnie wooin’!--When he whispered ‘Bessie!’ at th’ side o’ me at neet I’d say: ‘’Tisna Bessie, love; ’tis thy precious ninety pund a year i’ th’ bank; kiss thy owd Skipton market; kiss thy butter an’ eggs; kiss thy bit o’ horse-trade!’ A pretty wooin’!--Happen I’d see him lookin’ yonderly-like i’ th’ chimley-corner, thinkin’ why I didna bring him a bairn; I’d say, ‘There’s young blood an’ bairns enow; we’ll adopt one, an’ thou can call it Bessie.’--Tch!--’Tis naughbut ye owd nontkates that thinks all women’s th’ same i’ th’ dark! Wadna I ken? Wadna I ken when I were his Bessie? Wadna I brak my heart, bein’ his Bessie? Wadna I brak all three o’ we’r hearts?--Not I, as it chances, for I’m any kind o’ a fool but that kind, so get thy kirk built, Henry. They ha’na named me Lad-lass for naught.” “Thou doesna ken right what thou’s sayin’,” said the farmer. “No? So we live and learn, but I thought I did,” she replied imperturbably. “Now thou’s had thy bit crack, an’ there’ll be a mug o’ ale for thee at th’ loupin’-stane.--When wilt call an’ mak love o’ thy own account, Henry? ’Twad be a rare thing to be wed i’ your ain kirk.” The farmer passed out, and she turned to the churn again. The butter would not come, and now and then she muttered a man’s oath. The strip of shade outside the door became narrower as the sun crept round. A burnished cock mounted a fence and shrilled out a call that rang over the hot valley, and she unbuttoned her bodice at the throat and fumed. Suddenly the figure of a girl appeared in the doorway. She was heavily, moodily handsome, and her coal-black hair escaped from a cotton bonnet that had been pink but was now almost white with washing and exposure to the sun. Her lad’s clogs were white with dust, her round arms were brown and bare above the elbow, and her dark beauty showed brilliantly in the cool light of the dairy. “I ha’ come to say good-bye, Miss Stubbs,” she said timidly; “I leave to-night.” Harriet pursed her faded, cracked lips, and blinked her eyes at the other’s shrinking loveliness. “And thou’s come to say good-bye to me? Well, God grant we may al’ays ha’ more friends nor we ken; I thank ye.” “I’m Bessie Wyatt, an’ I’ve slipped out unknown o’ purpose to see ye.” “An’ that’s a jade’s trick, dodgin’ th’ last o’ your wark instead of straightenin’ up for them that’s to follow ye.” “’Tis what I wad do--straighten up for her that’s to follow me--wi’ Harry.”