“Father ’ull be fit to kill us all if he do find out.” “He won’t find out. He can’t be vexed wi’ you anyhow. Ye need only say that I’ve a-told ye so, an’ axed ye to speak to en for I.” “Well, that’s true. There, my dear, I’d be simply out o’ my wits wi’ joy. I’ve missed ye—there, I can’t tell ye how much I’ve missed ye.” They clung together, half laughing, half weeping, and the remainder of Alice’s visit was spent in the congenial task of building castles in the air. Farmer Bolt was rather taciturn at dinner-time, and his wife deemed it more prudent to postpone operations till a more favourable moment. In the evening, however, when milking was done, and tea over, and Mr Bolt drew up his chair to the fire and filled his pipe, he himself gave her the opportunity for which she had been hoping. “Ye had Alice wi’ ye to-day?” “Ees, she told me she’d passed ye in the Drove—how did ye think she was lookin’?” The farmer smoked for a moment or two with a gloomy expression. “She’ve fell away,” he said at last. “Fell away terr’ble.” “She have,” agreed his wife with a sigh. “I d’ ’low ’tis a hard struggle for she. There, she were a-tellin’ me she be often put to it to find a bit to put in little Abel’s mouth—them was her very words. ‘An’ I do often go hungry myself,’ says she, ‘an’ it bain’t so very good for me or baby.’” Farmer Bolt removed his pipe and glowered fiercely at his wife, as though she were responsible for this pitiable state of affairs. “An’ what could she expect,” he demanded, “when she took up wi’ that dalled chap? She threw herself away on en—wouldn’t hear a word again’ him, an’ he can’t so much as keep her. What’s the chap good for if he can’t earn enough to keep his wife an’ childer.” “He’s a good worker, ye know,” said Mrs Bolt tentatively; “ye did never have no fault to find wi’ en when he were wi’ us.” “I find fault wi’ en now, though,” shouted her lord. “Why don’t he do summat? Why don’t he turn his hand to summat? He’s all my daughter have got to look to now. I says to her when she took en, ‘Alice,’ I says, ‘ye must choose between Ned Blanchard an’ me.’ An’ she chose Ned Blanchard. Well, let him do summat, then.” “He be just a-thinkin’ o’ doin’ summat, my dear,” returned Mrs Bolt mildly. “Alice were tellin’ I to-day he were goin’ to emmygrate.” “What!” exclaimed the farmer aghast. “He be goin’ out abroad—he be goin’ to tole our Alice an’ them two little bits o’ childern out across the sea? Well, mother, how ye can sit lookin’ at me—” “Nay now, my dear, it bain’t so bad as that,” said Mrs Bolt, in the same meek and ingratiating tone. “He be a-goin’ to look for work, that’s what he be a-goin’ to do; an’ so soon as he’ve a-found it an’ have a-got a comfortable home ready, then he’ll send for our Alice an’ the childern to j’ine en. That’s the notion.” “Oh,” said her husband, staring at her hard. “That’s the notion, be it?”