Therefore, when Mrs. Winnie threw out a downright hint to her man that Gentleman John was likely to bring his lady-loveto Furze Farm, and insisted upon putting sundry gold pieces into son William’s pocket, Mr. Jennifer humphed and nodded, and supposed there would be no harm in it “if t’ parson be not left out in t’ cold.” Mrs. Winnie snubbed him for his sneaking prudery, and protested that he had no wits in him to see when a gentleman was of clean, brave blood and the very stock of honor. “The lad’s in love, Chris, as a lad should be, though he be past thirty by the set of his jaw and mouth. He ben’t one of your gilliflower gentlemen, prancing along and tweaking his chin to and fro to see how the women fall to him. It be none of my business to spy and to speculate, but the woman he be after, Chris, must be a woman worth winning.” Mr. Jennifer was heaving a couple of fagots into the wood-shed while his wife dropped these suggestions into his ear. Son William had been sent out with a basket to pick blackberries, and the men were down in the fields. “I hope it be nothing agen t’ law, Winnie.” “Go on, you great coward!” “Woa, my dear!” “When ye smacked Peter Tinsel on the mouth that day for love of me, did ye think of the law, Chris?” He stood and looked at her with a slow, broadening grin, as though he were proud of her cleverness and her courage. “T’ law be damned; that were what I told Peter Tinsel.” Mrs. Winnie stuck out her elbows as though to express the word “exactly.” But her husband came up to her and kissed her on the mouth with a manly vigor that swept away any sense of superiority on her part.