“She would bless you, Mrs. Winnie, as I should, for the very warmth of a fire. She has not felt the warmth of a fire this month or more, and she is half starved into the bargain.” Mrs. Jennifer opened her eyes with indignation. “What! not a stick of fire! Who be they who have the caring for her? And no victuals!” “Then you will let me bring her here—if I can?” “Dear heart, sir, yes. I’ll have my best blankets out, and make cakes and pasties. And perhaps she would like a nice young pullet, sir. We will put her in the parlor ingle-nook, and melt her heart, and give her stuff to make the color come.” John Gore held out a hand. “You do not know how I thank you for this. But there are my terms to be considered.” “Oh, get along, sir.” “I shall pass over to you three gold pieces a week.” Mrs. Winnie looked ready to scoff and laugh. “Three sixpences would be nearer the mark, sir. Why, Jem and Sam and Nicholas, our men, wouldn’t eat and drink a third of that in seven whole days.” “Never mind your men, Mrs. Jennifer.” “Not mind them! And where should we be in six months, the lazy loons! No, I tell you, sir.” John Gore tried her on another quarter. “Very well, Mrs. Winnie, take the money and put it in a stocking for your boy.” “But, sir—” “Take it, or turn me out of the door. I hold to your good-will and your trust with all my heart, but live on you I will not, just because I happened to pull the youngster out of the pond.” The woman gave the fire three more pokes. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, sir.” “Then you will put the money aside for the child’s sake.” Mr. Christopher Jennifer had had great faith in his wife’s wisdom ever since she had elected to marry him in preference to a gay sprig of a harness-maker at Lewes, a gallant who could write verses after the fashion of a gentleman, and had deigned to dazzle both with dress and address. Chris Jennifer in his courting days and season of rivalry had fallen violently foul of this same harness man for the love of Mrs. Winnie. Chris, who had never been a quarrelsome man, had put his bristles up at last under the provocation of his rival’s genteel and foppish impertinence. He had led the harness man by the ear into the back-yard of Mrs. Winnie’s father’s house, and there had smitten him, and in the smiting had won his way to Winnie’s heart. For she was a woman who must have strength of a kind in a man, and silence and shrewd sense, nor could she abide a ranter or a puff-bag, nor a fellow who was always talking big about the gentry, and telling how he had dined at the justice’s table. Men with long tongues were not after her fancy, seeing that length of tongue generally goes with a league of silly vanity and boasting, and that men who talk much are still talking while your quiet man has ploughed his furrow.