From her pronunciation of the name, it was quite evident that the young person in question was not what diplomats call _gratissima_ to Mrs. Mucklow. And the sniff that followed was aggressive. Mrs. Yellam poured out a large cup of tea with an impassive face. Inwardly, she winced. Alfred had kept his plans to himself, doing so, moreover, in accordance with advice well rubbed into him ever since he had affairs of his own to attend to. But a mother--and such a mother--might be deemed an exception to a golden rule. Mrs. Yellam said calmly: "Is he? Who is your Rose walking out wi'?" The question was ungrammatical and unkind. Rose, large, plain, and red-headed, sighed for swains who did not walk out with her. She might have been comfortably married to Alfred at this minute. The older families in Nether-Applewhite fancied intermarriage, much to the exasperation of Sir George Pomfret. And so far--the stock being exceptionally sound--no great evil had come of this. Within the year Prudence Rockley had married her first cousin. In Mrs. Mucklow's opinion marriages between near of kin were preferable to alliances with outsiders. Town girls, she regarded, not without reason, as hussies. "My Rose be a good girl, and well you knows it." "Maybe you have something agen this Fancy Broomfield? If so, Jane, out wi' it." "Townbred girls be all alike." Mrs. Yellam replied tranquilly: "I bain't an upholder o' they, but I keep faith in my Alferd's good sense and judgment. He's walked out wi' a baker's dozen o' maids afore this 'un, and why not? I've allers told Alferd to pick an' choose." Mrs. Mucklow attacked the buttered toast almost viciously. "'Tis true, I suppose, that his father's van ain't good enough for _your_ son?" Inwardly Mrs. Yellam winced again. Alfred had made his decision "on his own." But she answered as tranquilly as before: "Seemin'ly it ain't. God A'mighty knows what us be coming to, and He don't tell. As a Christian woman I bows afore Him." Poor Mrs. Mucklow, continually contrasting the prosperity of Alfred with the ill-luck, as she deemed it, of her own three sons, sniffed again. Not long since the three Mucklows had contemplated emigration to Canada. They had been anchored in Nether-Applewhite by Mr. Fishpingle, sometime butler to Sir Geoffrey, now bailiff at the Home Farm. They happened to pursue avocations such as hurdling, spar-making, hedging and ditching, which were precariously dependent upon a demand that varied tremendously, a demand that, year by year, shewed inexorable signs of failing. And Mrs. Mucklow was uneasily conscious that her sons' ill luck was regarded by her sister-in-law as part of a Divine dispensation. In the same complacent spirit the good-luck of Alfred became, in Susan Yellam's eyes, a mark of Divine favour. It may be imagined how this rankled in the heart of a woman who held herself to be as good a Christian as her neighbours, and perhaps better. Mrs. Mucklow retorted tartly: