“Ay, I’ll be bound it’s different!” she exclaimed with pride. “I’d a sight on’t once, not long afore the sale, and a lost-looking, dismal spot it was, to be sure! Seems like as if it couldn’t possibly be the same. What wi’ new furniture and range and wall-papers an’ suchlike, it’s for all the world like some other place.” “Ay, but I wasn’t meaning it like that. Seems as if it was the _old_ room I can see in t’glass. It was the old kitchen glass, you’ll think on, as I bought at the sale. Father didn’t want it going to off-comers and suchlike, so I bought it to please the poor old chap. He’d a sort of idea as glasses knew a deal—said there was glasses remembered things they’d seen. Likely this here has got the old kitchen on its mind. Likely it’s looked that often at the old, it can’t frame yet to take a peep at the new.” “Likely you’re blinded wi’ the sun!” She flung him a look of laughing scorn and went to the window again.... “What in the name o’ goodness can ha’ come to yon trap! D’you think owt’s gone amiss on the road?” “More like they’ve been late in setting off, as I said afore. I’ll be bound Marget’s found summat to keep ’em back, if it’s only to put the poor old man about. Or likely they’ve been bothered wi’ folk stopping ’em on t’road. They’ll all be agog on the marsh to think as he’s coming home.” “Folks say they’re glad the Sills isn’t quitting the marsh,” Agnes said. “They thought nowt o’ the man as come here after your dad. He seems to have been only a terble middlin’ sort—over fond o’ the drink and happen a bit daft. The place isn’t over lucky, Thomas, I doubt!” “Folks make their own luck,” Thomas said doggedly, squaring his jaw, “and anyway round it’s brought me all the luck I want. There’s you here, as I never thought’d come, and brass enough to put the farm on its legs. And now there’s the old man coming home to-night. I reckon I’m suited as well as most. There’s nobbut one thing grubs me,” he went on, with a moody look, “and that’s that the old chap ever had to gang.” “Eh, let it bide, can’t you?” Agnes cried aloud. She stole a glance at his face and her own drooped again. “Surely to goodness you’ve never been going over yon? Things is right enough now—as right as rain.” “Ay, but they’re spoilt a bit for us, all the same.” His voice had dropped back into the bitter tone. “I still feel sort o’ shamed about the job, and I reckon you’re none so bright about it yourself. And yet, if it come back over again, I’d do same as afore.” “I don’t see as we could ha’ done different,” Agnes said, and sighed. “I did say as I’d come if you couldn’t fix nowt else, but I doubt we wouldn’t ha’ made much out in the end.”