'Now, what wench'll cry for this night's work?' mused Vessons. Chapter 23 Hazel ran home through the dew, swift as a hare to her form. Mrs. Marston, communing with a small wood fire and a large Bible, looked over her spectacles as Hazel came in, and said: 'Draw your stockinged foot along the boards, my dear. Yes, I thought so, damp.' Hazel changed her stockings by the fire, and felt very cared for and very grand. A fire to change in the parlour! And several pairs of new stockings! She had never had more than one pair before, and those with 'ladders' in them. 'These here be proper stockings,' she said complacently--'these with holes in 'em as Edward bought me. Holes as _ought_ to be there, I mane. They show my legs mother-naked, and they look right nice.' 'Don't say that word, dear.' 'What 'un?' Mrs. Marston was silent for a moment. 'The sixth from the end,' she said; 'it's not nice for a minister's wife.' 'What mun I say?' Mrs. Marston was in a difficulty. 'Well,' she said at last, 'Edward should not have given you any cause to say anything.' Hazel blazed into loyalty. 'I'm sure I'm very much obleeged to Ed'ard,' she said, 'and I like 'em better for showing my legs. Oh, here _be_ Ed'ard! Ed'ard, these be proper stockings, inna they?' Edward glanced at them, and said indifferently that they were. As he did so, a line that had lately appeared on his forehead became very apparent. In her room upstairs, papered with buttercups and daisies by Edward himself, and scented by a bunch of roses he had given her, Hazel thought about Hunter's Spinney. Edward would not like her to go, and Edward had been kind--kinder than anyone had ever been. He had extended his kindness to Foxy also. 'I'm sure Foxy's much obleeged,' she thought. 'No, she could never tell Edward about Hunter's Spinney. If he questioned her, she knew that she would lie. He would certainly not be pleased. He might be very angry. Mrs. Marston would not like it at all; she would talk about a minister's wife. Reddin had said she must go, but she must not.' She smelt the roses. 'No,' she said, 'I must ne'er go to the Hunter's Spinney--not till doom breaks!' She said her prayers under the shelter of that resolve, with a supplementary one written out very neatly in gold ink by Edward, who wrote, as his mother said, 'a parchment script.'