“Four year an’ two month,” responded Mrs. Sibley. “There, the very day after Mrs. Foyle were buried he did come to me an’ he says so plain-spoke as anything, ‘Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘here be you a lone woman wi’out no family, an’ here be I wi’ all they little childern. Will ’ee come an’ keep house for I an’ look after ’em all? Ye’ll not be the loser by it,’ he says. So I looks him straight in the face: ‘I bain’t so sure o’ that, Mr. Foyle,’ I says. ‘I do look at it in this way, d’ye see. A woman has her chances,’ I says. ‘I don’t think Sibley ’ull last so very long--they seldom does at the ’sylum--an’ then here be I, a lone woman, as you do say. I mid very well like to settle myself again; an’ if I go an’ bury myself so far away from town in a place where there’s sich a few neighbours, I don’t see what prospects I’ll have.’” “Well, that was straightforward enough,” commented Mrs. Fry. “He couldn’t make no mistakes about your meanin’.” “He could not,” agreed Mrs. Sibley triumphantly; “an’ what’s more, he didn’t. He up an’ spoke as plain as a man could speak. ‘Well, Mrs. Sibley,’ he says, ‘there’s a Fate what rules us all.’ He be always a-sayin’ off bits o’ po’try an’ sich-like as he gets from the gravestones, ye know.” “Ah,” remarked Mrs. Fry nodding, “being the sexton, of course, it do come nat’ral to ’en, don’t it?” “‘There’s a Fate what rules us all,’ he says,” resumed Mrs. Sibley, “‘an’ we didn’t ought to m’urn as if we had no hope. If you was a free ’ooman, Mrs. Sibley--well, I’m a free man, and I’d make so good a husband as another. Maria did always find I so,’ he says.” “Well, the man couldn’t have said more.” “So you’d think. But why don’t he say summat now? There, I’ve a-kept his house an’ seen arter his childern for more nor four year. Time’s gettin’ on, ye know; I bain’t so young as I was.” Mrs. Fry began a polite disclaimer, but was overruled by the other. “I bain’t--’tisn’t in natur’ as I could be. I wer’ gettin’ a bit anxious this year when poor Sibley did seem to be hangin’ on so long, so I axed Rector to have ’en prayed for----” “A-h-h-h?” ejaculated Martha, as she paused. “An’ that did put the Lard in mind of ’en, I should think.” “It did put the Lard in mind of ’en,” agreed Mrs. Sibley with gusto. “The Lard see’d he warn’t no good to nobody in the ’sylum, an’ so he wer’ took.” “An’ Foyle have never come forward?” remarked Mrs. Fry, after a significant pause. “He’ve never made no offer, an’ he’ve never said a single word to show he were thinkin’ o’ sich a thing. Not _one word_, Mrs. Fry. I’ve given ’en the chance many a time. A month arter poor Sibley was buried I says to ’en, ‘Here be I now, Mr. Foyle,’ I says, ‘a widow ’ooman, the same as you be a widow man’.” “An’ what did he say?” queried her neighbour eagerly.