“No,” cried Mrs. Melmouth, shaking her head vehemently and sucking in her breath at the same time. “No-o-o, sir, ’twouldn’t never do, that wouldn’t. It must go all in a lump. Melmouth and me settled it that way years an’ years ago. He’d save a shillin’, d’ye see, an’ I’d scrape together another to put to it, an’ so we’d go on--for a rainy day, he’d say--but no rainy day ever did come----” “And what a good thing that was,” chimed in the farmer; “there isn’t many folks can say the same.” “Very like there bain’t. Thanks be, as I do say, Mester Hunt; thanks be for all mercies! But there ’tis, d’ye see.” Here her face assumed an anxious expression and she dropped her voice cautiously. “Who’s it to go to? Rector do tell I, I ought to be makin’ my will.” “True enough,” said Mr. Hunt judiciously; “so you ought, Becky, so you ought.” “Well, but,” resumed Mrs. Melmouth, “who’s to have it? Melmouth, he wer’ set on its going in a lump. Says he often an’ often, ‘Let it go in a lump, Becky, whatever you do do. Settle it as you do like’--he did say--‘for the dibs belongs to both on us equal. Let Simon (that’s my nevvy) have ’em, or let ’em go to Rosy’--Rosy be his sister’s oldest maid--‘but don’t divide ’em,’ says he; ‘let ’em go in a lump.’” Here Becky paused, and the farmer looked at her in silence, scratching his jaw in a non-committal manner. “Sometimes,” resumed Becky, “it do seem as if ’twould be right to leave it to Simon, him bein’ a man an’ my own flesh an’ blood. That there bit o’ money--’twas me first had the notion o’ puttin’ it by, and, as Melmouth did often use to say, there couldn’t be no savin’ done in the house wi’out I put my shoulder to the wheel. But, there! Rosy--Melmouth was oncommon fond o’ Rosy’s mother, and o’ Rosy herself when she was a little maid.” “Ah! you haven’t seen Mrs. Tuffin an’ her family since they shifted to Sturminster?” put in the farmer as she paused. Mrs. Melmouth shook her head. “I often wish I could,” she said; “but ’tis so far.” “An’ have ye seen Simon?” inquired the farmer. “He be a dairy chap, bain’t he?--’tis some time since he went to service.” “Ah! he’ve a-got a very good place t’other side o’ Darchester. He do write beautiful letters to my sister at Christmas. There, they be jist same’s as if they come out of a book.” “P’r’aps they are out of a book,” suggested Mr. Hunt. “There did use to be a book about letter-writin’ when I was a young chap; but what it wanted to say was never same as what I wanted to say, and my mother--poor soul! couldn’t spell the long words, so I did give up using it. But since ye haven’t seen either of these two young folks for so long, Mrs. Melmouth, why not ax ’em both to come and stop wi’ ye, an’ see which ye do like the best? You’d soon find out then what they was both made on, an’ I’d pick out the one as did please ye most to leave the stockin’ to.”