“Isn’t it?” cried Sir Giles Piercey’s heir. “Not a penny but what’s doled out as if I were fifteen instead of twenty-five--or I’d have brought you diamonds, before now, Patty, to put round your neck.” “Would you, now, Mr. Gervase? And what good would they have been to me at the Seven Thorns? You can’t wear diamonds when you’re drawing beer,” she added, with a laugh. “I can’t abide you to be drawing beer,” cried the young man: “unless when it is for me.” “And that’s the worst I can do,” said Patty, quickly. “Here’s just how it is: till you give up all that beer, Mr. Gervase, you’re not the man for me. It’s what I begun with, and you’ve brought me round to it again. Him as I’ve to do with shall never be like that. Father sells it--more’s the pity; but I don’t hold with it. And, if I had the power, not a woman in the country would look at a man that was fond of it: more than for his meals, and, perhaps, a drop when he’s thirsty,” she added, in a more subdued tone. “That’s just my case, Patty,” said Gervase; “a drop when I’m thirsty--and most often I am thirsty----” “That’s not what I mean, neither. If you were up and down from morning to night getting in your hay, or seeing to your turnips, or riding to market--well, then I’d allow you a drink, like as I would to your horse, only the brute has the most sense, and drinks good water; but roaming up and down, doing nothing as you are--taking a walk for the sake of getting a drink, and then another walk to give you the excuse to come back again, and nothing else in your mind but how soon you can get another; and then sitting at it at night for hours together till you’re all full of it--like a wet sponge, and smelling like the parlour does in the morning before the windows are opened--Faugh!” cried Patty, vigorously pushing him away, “it is enough to make a woman sick!” Personal disgust is the one thing which nobody can bear; even the abject Gervase was moved to resentment. “If I make you sick, I’d better go,” he said sullenly, “and find another place where they ain’t so squeamish.” “Yes, do; there are plenty of folks that don’t mind: neither for your good nor for their own feelings. You can go, and welcome. And I’m going back to the house.” “Oh, stop a moment, Patty! Don’t take a fellow up so quick! It isn’t nice to hear a girl say that, when you worship the ground she stands on----” “The smell of beer,” said Patty, sniffing audibly with her nostrils in the air, “is what I never could abide.” “You oughtn’t to mind it. If it wasn’t for beer----”