Jem grinned. “No, I d’ ’low she wouldn’t. Missus be a grand hand at feedin’ chicken; she’ve a-had prac_tise_, haven’t she, Measter? I’ll go warrant she have.” “And I’ve been doing something else too, John,” continued she, when the explosion had in some measure subsided. “See here!” She opened the lid of the little covered basket which she carried, and displayed three nosegays of white flowers. “I thought we might wear these,” she remarked. “I very nearly brought favours for the horses, too, but I was afraid it would excite remark.” “And you were right,” said he; “but I think we’ve managed pretty well to put ’em off the scent. Jem did drive a good bit along the Dorchester road, and back very quiet over the heath. ’Twas very artful of ’ee, my dear, to be talkin’ so innercent-like about Weymouth yesterday--they’ll think we’ve a-gone there, for sure.” The old lady drew herself up with a little conscious air. “It takes a woman’s wit to think of them things,” she said: “But I do feel sorry for them all, too. I left just a bit of a line for Mary to say she wasn’t to be frightened and we was just gone for the day, and they mustn’t think of looking for us. But I can’t help thinking it does seem a shame. There, all the poor things will be comin’ from this place and that place and bringing the children, and making ready their little speeches, and getting out their little presents----” The old man began to chuckle again. She looked at him reproachfully, and he laughed louder and rubbed his hands. “’Tis very unfeeling of you to laugh like that, John. I’m sure it is. Haven’t you got no feeling for your own flesh and blood?” “If you come to that,” said John, “whose notion was it? Says I, ‘I do wish,’ I says, ‘we could give ’em all the slip and spend the happy day quiet by our two selves.’ And says you, ‘Why shouldn’t we, then?’ says you. ‘Look here,’ you says, ‘why shouldn’t we do it over again, John?’ ‘What?’ says I. ‘What we done fifty years ago,’ says you. ‘Well,’ I says, and I say now, ‘it takes a woman’s cleverness to think o’ such things.’ So here we be a-runnin’ away again, love; bain’t we?” She extended her little mittened hand to him with a gracious smile that had in it a droll assumption of coyness. “There’s the ring, though,” said he; “that there ring ought to come off, Susan, else it ’ull not seem real-like.” His gnarled old fingers were already fumbling with the ring, but she jerked away her hand quickly. “No, indeed!” she cried. “Have it off! I wouldn’t have it off for a thousand pounds. It’s never been off my finger all these years, John, and I’m certainly not going to have it off to-day.”