Many willing hands made the task a light one, and in an hour's time the cottage had assumed its old aspect, and the women had swept and dusted and given the finishing touches to everything. Mrs. Higgins was critical, but expressed herself satisfied at last. Then she climbed into the trap and seated herself beside her husband. "Good-bye, friends," she shouted, as they drove off. "Don't ye worry. He can drive t' owd mare, but 'e can't drive me. I'll bring 'im to 'is sops!" "Gosh!" snapped Sar'-Ann's mother, "now that's some bit like! Gi' me a woman for mettle an' sperrit I Lord 'elp us, but I reckon nowt o' such a white-livered lot o' men as we hev i' Windyridge. She'll mak' a man o' yon old rascal yet, will Maria!" As I looked back on my way home I saw that Ted had fetched his rake, and was busy getting the garden into order again. CHAPTER XX THE CYNIC'S RENUNCIATION Excitements tread upon each other's heels. After Barjona, the Cynic. He appeared unexpectedly on Monday morning, and I took the long-promised photographs, which have turned out very badly; why, I don't know. He was not in his Sunday best, so the fault did not lie there; and his expression was all right, but I could not catch it on the plate, try as I might. He was very much amused, and accused me of looking haggard over the business, which was absurd. Every photographer is anxious to secure a satisfactory result, or if he is not he does not deserve to succeed. I think really I was afraid of his waxing sarcastic over my attempts at portraying his features. He is not a handsome man, as I may have remarked before, but he is not the sort that passes unnoticed, and I wanted to secure on the plate the something that makes people look twice at him; and I failed. I took several negatives, but none of them was half as nice as the original; and yet we are told that photography flatters! He professed an indifference which I am afraid he felt, and Mother Hubbard assured him over the dinner-table that there was not the slightest ground for anxiety. It will be a long time, I fear, before he gets the proofs. He stayed to dinner on his own invitation, and Mother Hubbard prepared one of her extra special Yorkshire puddings in his honour. Fortunately, we had not cooked the beef on the Sunday, or he would have had to be content with the remains of the cold joint; and though I should not have minded, I know Mother Hubbard would have been greatly distressed. He spoke quite naturally about Rose, and appeared to have enjoyed her company immensely, but he had not seen her again up to then. When the meal was over we went out into the garden and sat down, and somehow or other the sense of quiet and the beauty of the view soothed me, and I felt less irritable than for days past. I never get tired of the dip of green fields and the stretch of moor on the far side of the wood.