Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men to hold the mare,
and ushered the young man in. Once there, Richard's conjurations ceased.
There was a deadness about the rooms and passages that told of her
absence. The walls he touched--these were the vacant shells of her. He
had never been in the house since he knew her, and now what strange
sweetness, and what pangs!

Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the table in
open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of the fashions for a summer
month which had elapsed during his mother's minority. Young Tom was
respectfully studying the aspects of the radiant beauties of the polite
work. He also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled, and full of wonder.

"What, Tom!" the farmer sang out as soon as he had opened the door;
"there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye? What good'll them fashens do to
you, I'd like t'know? Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr. Fev'rel's
mare. He's al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there never were a
better name for a book than that ther' Folly! Talk about attitudes!"

The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned his visitor
to do likewise.

"It's a comfort they're most on 'em females," he pursued, sounding a
thwack on his knee as he settled himself agreeably in his seat. "It don't
matter much what they does, except pinchin' in--waspin' it at the waist.
Give me nature, I say--woman as she's made! eh, young gentleman?"

"You seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing round, and at the
ceiling.

"Lonely?" quoth the farmer. "Well, for the matter o' that, we be!--jest
now, so't happens; I've got my pipe, and Tom've got his Folly. He's on
one side the table, and I'm on t'other. He gapes, and I gazes. We are a
bit lonesome. But there--it's for the best!"

Richard resumed, "I hardly expected to see you to-night, Mr. Blaize."

"Y'acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and I does ye honour for
it!" said Farmer Blaize with sudden energy and directness.

The thing implied by the farmer's words caused Richard to take a quick
breath. They looked at each other, and looked away, the farmer thrumming
on the arm of his chair.

Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indifferent miniatures of
high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of the anterior generation, trying their
best not to grin, and high-waisted old ladies smiling an encouraging
smile through plentiful cap-puckers, there hung a passably executed
half