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No voice save her own was heard till the cup was emptied, upon which Master Gammon, according to his wont, departed for bed to avoid the seduction of suppers, which he shunned as apoplectic, and Mrs. Sumfit prepared, in a desolate way, to wash the tea-things, but the farmer, saying that it could be done in the morning, went to the door and opened it for her.

Sumfit ventured to think aloud that his grog was not stiff enough, but he took a gulp under her eyes, and smacked his lips after it in a most convincing manner. "Ah! that stuff wouldn't do for me in London, half-holiday or no half-holiday," said Anthony. "Why not?" the farmer asked.

Gammon was obstinate, but it was not he who, after taking a lead, and making the farm dependent on his lead, had absconded with the brains and energy of the establishment. Such reflections passed through the farmer's mind. Rhoda and Mrs. Sumfit came together down the trim pathway; and Robert now had a clear charge against Master Gammon. He recommended an immediate departure.

Sumfit sobbed: "lonesome hysterics, they's death to come. She's falling into the trance. I'll go, for the sight o' me shocks her." Rhoda knocked, waited patiently till her persistent repetition of her name gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the broken Dahlia from whom she had parted.

"She begs," Mrs. Sumfit answered to him "She begs, William, on'y a short five minutes to pray by herself, which you will grant unto her, dear, you will. Lord! what's come upon us?" "Quick, and down with the box, then, mother," he rejoined. The box was dragged out, and Dahlia's door was shut, that she might have her last minutes alone.

Sumfit to pledge herself in perturbation of spirit to an oath that her eyes had seen Anthony Hackbut; and more, which was, that after the close of the funeral service, the young squire had caught sight of Anthony crouching in a corner of the churchyard, and had sent a man to him, and they had disappeared together. Mrs. Sumfit was heartily laughed at and rallied both by Robert and the farmer.

Sumfit mixed liquor with hot water, and pushed at his knee, doubling in her enduring lips, and lengthening her eyes to aim a side-glance of reprehension at Anthony's wandering loquacity. Rhoda could bear it no more. "Now let me hear of my sister, uncle," she said. "I'll tell you what," Anthony responded, "she hasn't got such a pretty sort of a sweet blackbirdy voice as you've got."

Sumfit dolorously said, "Often, William dear," and accepted the incontestable truth in deep humiliation of mind. "Save," the farmer continued, "save and store, only don't put your heart in the box." "It's true, William;" Mrs. Sumfit acted clerk to the sermon. Dahlia took her softly by the neck, and kissed her. "Is it love for the old woman?" Mrs.

"I've come for my wife," Sedgett said to all her instances. His voice was waxing loud and insolent, and, as it sounded, Mrs. Sumfit moaned and flapped her apron. "Then, how could you have married him?" They heard the farmer's roar of this unanswerable thing, aloft. "Yes how! how!" cried Rhoda below, utterly forgetting the part she had played in the marriage.

"She won't be ashamed of me," Rhoda faltered; and then hummed a little tune, and said firmly "It's no use my trying to look like what I'm not." "No, truly;" Mrs. Sumfit assented. "But it's your bein' behind the fashions what hurt me. As well you might be an old thing like me, for any pleasant looks you'll git. Now, the country you're like in a coalhole for the matter o' that.