“I dare say you are surprised, my lad, that I should have come to know so much of this unhappy story; more I believe than is even known by the lady’s own sister—our Miss Coldpepper. Women are slower to forgive than men, and slower in beginning to be forgiven. Arabella has never forgiven her sister for running away with her lover; and Monica has never forgiven her sister for making such a fuss about it. They may try to pull together, when it suits their purpose; but the less they see of one another, the greater the chance of their reconciliation. But I am not come to the poor Captain yet; and, bless my heart, it is ten o’clock! What a time to stay up about other people’s business! If you want to hear the rest, you must have it to-morrow.” CHAPTER XIV. AND ENDS WITH A MORAL. ALL through the following day, we were forced to be hard at work, whether we liked it or not, gathering a large lot of early apples, such as Keswick, Sugarloaf, and Julien, which would have been under the trees by this time in an early season. But this, through the chill and continual rain of the time that should have been summer, was the latest season within human memory; which (like its owners) is not very long. And now a break-up of the weather was threatened, at which we could not grumble, having now enjoyed ten days without any rain—a remarkable thing in much better years than this. And in this year it truly was a God-send, helping us to make some little push, before the winter closed over us, and comforting us to look up to Heaven, without being almost beaten down. The people who live in great cities, where they need only go a few yards all day long, and can get beneath an awning or an archway, if a drop of rain disturbs their hats, give the weather ten bad words for every one we give it; though we are bound to work in it, and worse than that, have our livelihood hanging upon it. Not that we are better pleased than they; only that our more wholesome life, and the strength of the trees, and the unexhausted air, perhaps put into us a kinder spirit to make the best of things that are ordered from above. Few things in the manner of ordinary work become more wearisome after a while than the long-continued gathering of fruit. The scent, which is delightful to those who catch a mere whiff of it in going by, becomes most cloying and even irksome to those who have it all day in their nostrils. And the beauty of the form and colour too, and the sleek gloss of each fine sample, lose all their delight in the crowd of their coming, and make us even long to see the last of them. Every man of us, even Uncle Corny, to whom every basket was grist for the mill, felt heartily glad when streaky sunset faded softly into dusk, when flat leaf looked as round as fruit, and apples knocked our heads instead of gliding into the ready hand.