"I do, my dear. I never meant anything with a better appetite. A great loss, because with one like me--old and stricken before my time, along of working far too hard, which was a foolish fault in my generation--it was a comforting thing to feel I'd got a hossman in you worthy of the name. You be the pattern of a good, useful sort, that's dying out--worse luck. But when you said you wasn't a nosey-poker, Thomas, you said wrong, I'm afraid; and a meddlesome man, that has time to spare from the hosses for the women, and thrusts in between parent and child, be very much against the grain with me. And though, of course, you may be quite right, and know better how to treat and cherish a grown-up daughter than a stupid creature like me--and you a bachelor--yet even the worm will turn, Thomas. And, worm though I am, I be going to venture to turn. You're great on the point of view; and so will I be: and, from my point of view, I can see you haven't got enough work to do in this little place. You must go in the world and find a bigger and a harder job, that won't leave you time for other people's business, which at best be a kicklish task and avoided by men of much wits as a rule." "I meant well, master." "And don't you always mean well? Why, you're the most well-meaning man, after myself, I ever had the luck to meet, Thomas. But you've fixed a gulf to-day, and I feel terrible sure we shan't suit each other no more. So we'll part friends Monday month." Joe spoke with far greater cordiality than when raising Mr. Palk's wages six weeks before. He beamed graciously on Thomas and lighted his pipe again. "The talk be at an end now, because I mustn't strain my tubes," he said. "And I'll beg you not to return to the subject. Both me and my God are very well satisfied with the way I brought up Soosie-Toosie, and so's she; and if she feels there's anything on this earth I can do for her, to make her home a happier place, rest assured she'll ax me herself. She's my master-jewel and always will be, though she'll never know all I've done for her, because no child ever can know the heights and depths of a good father's love. 'A good father,' mark me, Thomas." "Monday month then, master?" "If quite convenient to yourself." Then Palk went out into storm and gathering dusk. The woods of Buckland waved grey through the gloaming and rain swept them heavily. The wind shouted over the granite crown of the Beacon; sheep and cattle had crept down from the high land and stood in the shelter of walls and woods. Thomas considered with himself. He was in a state as perturbed as it was possible for such a stolid spirit to be; but he remembered that the innocent cause of this revolution was now returning heavy laden up the long hill from the market town. He decided that he would go and meet Susan. His upheaval took the form of increased solicitude for Miss Stockman. "She shall hear the fatal news from me--not him," he reflected.