'He inna bad to live along of,' she confided, with a nod towards the cottage. 'O' course, he's crossways time and again, and a devil's temper.' 'You mustn't speak of your father like that, Hazel.' 'What for not? He _be_ like that.' 'Are all these apple-trees yours?' he asked to change the subject. 'No, they'm father's. But I get the windfa'ls and the bruised 'uns. I allus see'--she smiled winningly--'as there's plenty of them. Foxy likes 'em. He found me at it once bruising of 'em. God a'mighty! what a hiding he give me!' Edward felt depressed. He could not harmonize Hazel's personality with his mother's; he was shocked at her expressions; he was sufficiently fastidious to recoil from dirt; the thought of Abel as a father-in-law was little short of appalling. Yet, in spite of all these things, he had felt such elation, such spring rapture when Hazel danced; the world took on such strange new colours when she looked at him that he knew he must love her for ever. He felt that as his emotions grew stronger--and they were becoming more and more like a herd of young calves out at grass--his ways of expression must increase in correctness. 'Hazel--' he began. 'I like the way you say it,' she interrupted. 'Ah! I like it right well! Breathin' strong, like folk coming up the Monkey's Ladder.' 'Whatever's that?' 'Dunna you know Monkey's Ladder? It's that road there. Somebody's coming up it now on a horse.' They both looked down at Reddin climbing slowly and still some way off. They did not know who it was, nor what destiny was pacing silently towards them with his advancing figure, nor why he rode up and down this road and other roads every day; but an inexplicable sense of urgency came upon Edward. To his own surprise, he said suddenly: 'I came to ask if you'd marry me, Hazel Woodus?' 'Eh?' said she, dazed with surprise. 'Will you marry me, Hazel? I can give you a good home, and I will try to be a good husband, and--and I love you, Hazel, dear.' Hazel put her head on one side like a willow-wren singing. She liked to be called dear. 'D'you like me as much as I like Foxy?' 'Far more.' 'You've bin very quick about it.' 'I'm afraid I have.' 'Will you buy me a green gown with yellow roses on?' 'If you like.' He spoke doubtfully, wondering what his mother would think of it. 'And shall we sit down to our dinners at a table with a cloth on like at--' She stopped. She could not tell him about Undern. 'Like the gentry?' she finished. 'Yes, dear.' 'And will you tell that sleepy old lady as lives along, of you--' ('Oh, poor mother!' thought Edward.) '--Not to stare and stare at me over the top of her spectacles like a cow at a cornfield over the fence?' 'Yes--yes,' said Edward hastily, feeling that his mother must wait to be reinstated until he had made sure of Hazel. 'All right, then; I'll come.' Edward took her hand; then he kissed her cheek gently. She accepted the kiss placidly. There was nothing in it to remind her of Reddin's.