Her own eyes filled as she saw Isaac unaffectedly wiping away his tears with his great red-and-yellow handkerchief, and for some moments no word was spoken between them. She filled his pipe and lit it for him, but he suffered it to rest idly between his fingers, and made no attempt to sip at the tumbler of spirits and water which she placed at his elbow. ‘Let’s talk of him,’ she murmured softly, at last, bending forward. ‘Tell me about when you knew him first.’ ‘Lard!’ said Sharpe with a sniff, ‘I know’d him all his life, I may say; I were with him when he were confirmed—and I were at both his weddin’s. Yours was the only one I was n’t at.’ Rosalie straightened herself, feeling as if a douche of cold water had been unexpectedly applied to her. ‘Ah,’ went on Isaac, shaking his head mournfully, ‘I knowed his fust and his second missus well—they was nice women, both on ’em. The fust was a bit near, but, as poor ’Lias used to say, ’twas a good fault. Ah, he’d say that—a good fault.’ He put his pipe between his lips, and immediately took it out again. ‘The second Mrs. Fiander,’ he went on, ‘was a good creatur’ too—very savin’; delicate, though; but he’d al’ays make allowances, her husband would, though it did seem to me sometimes as it was a bit disheartenin’ to a man when his wife got the ’titus just at the busiest time of year. Ah, he used to tell me often as it were n’t no use to be a dairy-farmer without you had a active wife.’ Rosalie fidgeted in her chair: these little anecdotes of Isaac seemed to her rather pointless under the present circumstances. ‘All I can say is,’ she remarked after a pause, ‘that _I_ always found poor dear Elias the most considerate of men.’ ‘I d’ ’low ye did,’ said Isaac, turning his moist eyes upon her. ‘He thought a deal o’ you—he did that. Says he to me the first night I come here, when you come home arter getting wed, “I d’ ’low,” says he, “she’s the best o’ the three.”’ There was comfort in this thought, and Rosalie looked gratefully at her visitor, whose eyes had again become suffused with tears as he recalled this touching tribute. ‘He used to say,’ she observed presently in a low voice, ‘that I was a very good manager, but I don’t think it was on that account alone he was so fond of me.’ ‘’Ees, he did use to say you was a wonderful manager,’ said Isaac, disregarding the latter part of the sentence. ‘Many a time he’ve a-told me that you had n’t got no equal as a manager.’ Sentiment was evidently not to be the order of the day, but here, at least, was an opportunity of introducing the little matter of business which weighed so heavily on Rosalie’s conscience. ‘I think,’ she said, diffidently, ‘he would say I was wise in carrying out this new plan.’ ‘What new plan?’ inquired Isaac, pausing with his handkerchief halfway to his eyes, and turning towards her sternly, though the tears hung upon his grizzled lashes.