‘Whom would you choose, then?’ cried she. ‘Wilson, to drink, and race away my husband’s hard-earned money? Andrew Burge, perhaps, whom you drove out of this house with your own hands? Or that little ferret-faced Samuel Cross—he’d know how to manage a dairy-farm, would n’t he? You’d like to see him strutting about, and giving orders here? I tell you what it is, Isaac Sharpe, if you have no respect for dear Elias’s memory, you should be glad that I have.’ ‘Who says I have n’t respect for ’Lias’s memory?’ thundered Isaac, now almost goaded into a fury. ‘I’ve known ’en a deal longer nor you have, Widow Fiander, and there’s no one in this world as thought more on him. All I says is—I bain’t a marryin’ man—’Lias knowed I were n’t never a marryin’ man. I don’t believe,’ added Isaac, with an emphatic thump on the table, ‘I don’t believe as if ’Lias were alive he’d expect it of me.’ ‘But he’s dead, you see,’ returned Rosalie with a sudden pathetic change of tone—‘he’s dead, and that is why everything is going wrong. I should n’t think of making a change myself if I did n’t feel it was the only thing to do. You loved Elias; you knew his ways; you would carry on the work just as he used to do—it would n’t be like putting a stranger in his place. I would n’t do it if I could help it,’ she added, sobbing; ‘but I think we—we should both try to do our duty by Elias.’ Isaac, visibly moved, rolled his eyes towards her and heaved a mighty sigh. ‘Of course, if you put it that way,’ he began; and then his courage failed him, and be became once more mute. ‘It would n’t be such a bad thing for you, Mr. Sharpe,’ went on Rosalie faintly. ‘’T is a very fine farm, and a good business. It would be convenient for you to work the two farms together. You’d have quite a large property—and this is a very comfortable house.’ ‘Ah,’ agreed Isaac, ‘’t is a good house, but I have n’t no need for two houses. I’m content wi’ the one where I were born.’ ‘Oh, but that won’t do at all,’ cried Rosalie with sudden animation; ‘you would have to live here—the object of my marrying you would be that you should live here.’ ‘I’ve a-lived in my own house ever sin’ I were born,’ said the farmer obstinately, ‘and when a man weds he takes his wife to live wi’ him.’ ‘Not when the wife has got the best house of the two,’ retorted Mrs. Fiander. ‘A man can’t live in two houses,’ asserted Isaac; adding, after a pause: ‘What would ye have me do with mine, then?’ ‘You could put your head-man to live in it,’ returned she, ‘paying you rent, of course. Or you could let it to somebody else—you would make money in that way.’ One by one Isaac’s entrenchments were being carried: no resource remained open to him but to capitulate or to take flight. He chose the latter alternative. ‘’T is not a thing as a body can make up his mind to in a hurry,’ he said. ‘I must think it over, Mrs. Fiander.’