"If you believe there was any honesty in it!" said Mr Philp. "'Twas only my suspicious natur' as saved me." The whole town, indeed, was watching the rivals, and with an open interest very difficult to resent. Nay, since it was impossible to tell every second man in the street to mind his own business, Cai and 'Bias accepted the publicity perforce and turned their resentment upon one another. They continued, of course, to live apart, and Mrs Bowldler soon learned to avoid playing the intermediary, even to the extent of suggesting (say) some concerted action over the coal supplies. After the first fortnight no messages passed between them-- "They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs that had been rent asunder." If they met, in shop or roadway, they nodded, but exchanged no other greeting. They never met at Rilla Farm. How it was agreed I know not, though Mrs Bosenna must have contrived it somehow; but they now prosecuted their wooing openly on alternate days. Sunday she reserved for what Sunday ought to be--a day of rest. "The artfulness!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler on making discovery of this arrangement. "But the men are no match for us, my dear"--this to Fancy--"an' the oftener they marry us the cleverer they leave us." "Then 'tis a good job Henry the Eighth wasn' a woman," commented Fancy. "There was some such case in the Scriptures, if you'll remember; and it says that last of all the woman died also. If she did, you may be sure as 'twasn't till she chose." "I heard Mr Rogers say t'other day, 'Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged.'" "Pray let us change the subjeck," said Mrs Bowldler hastily. "Why? . . . What did Mr Bowldler die of? I've often meant to ask," said Fancy, "and then again I've wondered sometimes if there ever was any such person." "There _was_ such a person." Mrs Bowldler half-closed her eyes in dreamy reminiscence. "Further than that I would not like to commit myself." "He's dead, then?" "He was a fitter in a ladies' tailorin', and naturally gay by temperament. It led to misunderstandin's. . . . Dead? No, not that I am aware of. For all I know he's still starrin' it somewhere in the provinces." She protested that for the moment she must drop the subject, which invariably affected her with palpitations; but promised to return to it in confidence when she felt stronger. Throughout these days, however, and for many days to come, she discoursed at large on the diplomacy of widows; warning Palmerston to shape his course in avoidance of them. And that budding author--who had already learnt to take his good things where he found them--boldly transferred her warnings to the pages of 'Pickerley,' which thereby arrived at resembling 'Pickwick' in one respect if in no other. From these generalities she would hark back, at shortest notice, to the practical present.