"Such a lover of the night as she is!" declared Margaret. "Never was a stranger girl in some ways, I think--to say it lovingly. Give her a dog or two and nightfall, and off she’ll tramp to meet the moonrise. Whatever do she do out in the dark, David?" "Blest if I can answer that. She’ve got her secrets--like everything else that goeth in petticoats, no doubt. But few enough secrets from my ear, I reckon. ’Twas always a great desire in her to be out by night, and more’n once faither whipped her, when she was a dinky little maid, because she would go straying in the warrens when she ought to have been in bed, and fright her mother nigh to death. I’ve axed her many a time about it, but she can’t or won’t offer reasons. It pleases her to see the night creatures at their work, I suppose. She’ll tell you things that might much surprise you about the ways of the night, and what happens under it." "She likes the moon better than the sun, I believe. Sometimes I’m tempted to think her blood’s cold instead of hot, David." "You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her kiss my smashed face after the fight last winter;--no, nor heard her when she spoke of Bartley Crocker kissing hers." "I believe Bartley would marry her joyfully," said Margaret; but David doubted it. "Not him--not after what she said to him in the Pixies’ House, and after what I said to him in the bull-ring. No man ever paid dearer for a kiss than him, I reckon. But very good friends now, thank God. But my brother-in-law--no. He’ll never come to be that. He don’t want Rhoda and Rhoda don’t want him." "He told me that well he knew he’d have beat you, if Rhoda had been o’ his side." "I daresay that’s true." They sat together in the theatre of their future life, and Madge brushed David’s hair away from his right ear. The organ was slightly larger than the other and she shook her head discontentedly. "’Twill never be just so beautiful as the left one," she said. He laughed. "What do it matter so long as I can hear with it?" "And your dear eyelid will droop for ever." "Yes, but the eye behind be all right. Bartley’s got his mark too--where I hit him that last time." "He’s coming up one evening to see this place. Not but he knows it well enough already. He told me that the valley under Harter up along and beyond be nearly always good for a snipe at the season of the year." "A pity he don’t come and lend a hand here, if ’twas only mixing mortar. ’Twould be something for him to do. How any living being can waste his life like that man is a mystery and a shame." "Always happy too," said Madge. "He’ve got a very kind heart, David." "I know that--else he’d have licked me instead of my licking him. Don’t think I bear the man any ill-will--far from it. We’re real good friends and he’s very clever by nature. I’m only sorry he can’t find man’s work. He’ve larned a trade now, then why don’t he use it?"