ulus, Trewhella came through the garden and faced
her.

"So you and me's going to have a child, missus?"

Jenny resented the assumption of his partnership and gave a cold
affirmative.

"That's a good job," he sighed, staring out into the air stained with
crimson from twilight's approach. "I feel brim pleased about that.
There'll be some fine Harvest Home to Bochyn come September month."

Then from the vagueness of such expressed aspirations Zachary turned to
a practical view of the matter on hand, regarding his wife earnestly as
he might from the support of a gate have looked discriminatingly at a
field of young wheat.

"Is there anything you do want?" he presently inquired.

Perhaps the cool straightness of the question contained a hint of expert
advice, as if for his field he would prescribe phosphates or nitrate or
sulphate of ammonia. There was no suggestion of spiritual needs that
might call out for nourishment under the stress of a new experience.
Jenny felt that she was being sized up with a view to the best practical
conduct of the agitating business.

"I wish you wouldn't talk about me," she protested, "like you talked
about that cow the other day at dinner."

Trewhella looked perplexed. He never seemed able to grasp whether this
sharp-voiced Londoner whom he had married were laughing at him or not.

"I've always heard it spoken," he began slowly. He always proceeded
slowly with a conversation that held a warning of barbed wire, as if by
disregarding the obstacle and by cautious advance any defense could be
broken down.

"I've always heard it spoken that the women do dearly love something or
other at such times. Mother used to tell how before I were born, she
were in a terrible hurry to eat a Cornish Gillyflower. But there wasn't
one tree as bore an apple that year. Irish Peaches? Ess, bushels. No,
that wouldn't do for her. Tom Putts? Sweet Larks? Ess, bushels. No more
wouldn't they serve. Boxers? Sops and Wines? Ess, bushels, and, darn
'ee, they made her retch to look at 'em."

"She'd properly got the pip, hadn't she?" observed Jenny mockingly.

Trewhella saw the wire and made a circuit.

"So I was thinking you might be wanting something as I could get for 'ee
on market-day to Camston."

"No, thanks, there's nothing I want. Not even a penny pomegranate," said
Jenny, who was anxious for Zachary to go. She did not like this attempt
at intimacy. She had not foreseen the alliance of sympathy he pr