"I don’t see how you could look for folks to take it different!" Eliza cried. "’Tisn’t a likely sort o’ story, any way round. Ne’er-do-weels don’t make their fortunes every day o’ the week, and your Geordie was a wastrel, if ever there was one yet. You don’t look like good news, neither, come to that. They’ve just been saying so in t’other room." "Good news wants a bit o’ getting used to," Sarah said quietly, "same as everything else. When you’ve never had no luck for years and years you don’t seem at first as if you could rightly take it in." "More particular when you’re making it up out o’ your own head!" Eliza scoffed, but growing more and more unwillingly convinced. "Nay, now, Sarah!" she added impatiently, her hands twitching,--"what d’ye think ye’re at? What about all yon talk o’ giving up the farm? No need for such a to-do if Geordie’s coming home!" For the first time, though only just for a second, Sarah quailed. For the first time she had a glimpse of the maze in which she had set her feet, and longed sharply for her physical sight as if it would help her mental vision. But her brain was still quick with the power of the dream, and it rose easily to the sudden need. "It’s like this, d’ye see," she announced firmly. "Simon knows nowt about it yet. I didn’t mean telling him till we’d gitten back." Eliza had followed the explanation with lowering brows, but now she burst into one of her great laughs. "Losh, Sarah, woman! but I’d have a better tale than that! What, you’d never ha’ let him give in his notice, and you wi’ your tongue in your cheek all the time! ... When did you get yon precious letter o’ yours?" she enquired swiftly, switching on to another track. "Just last minute this morning as we was starting off." Sarah was thoroughly launched now on her wild career. Each detail as she required it rose triumphantly to her lips. "Simon was back in t’stable wi’ t’horse when postman come, so I put it away in my pocket and settled to say nowt. I thought it was likely axing for money or summat like that, and Simon had more than enough to bother him as it was. I got May Fleming to read it for me at doctor’s," she finished simply, with a supreme touch. "I’m terble bad wi’ my eyes, Eliza, if you’ll trouble to think on." Once again Eliza was forced to belief against her will, and then once again she leaped at the only discrepancy in the tale. "You could ha’ tellt Simon easy enough on the road out!" she threw at her in a swift taunt. "There’s time for a deal o’ telling at your rate o’ speed!" But now, to her vexed surprise, it was Sarah who laughed, and with a society smoothness that would have been hard to beat. It was in matters like these that the dream lifted her into another sphere, puzzling her clumsy antagonist by the finer air she seemed to breathe.