le Joshua. You couldn't never be so ungrateful as to let it
spoil."

"There's Mrs Wishing now," said Joshua, stilt hesitating, "a sickly
ailing body as 'ud relish a morsel like this."

It was not until Lilac had set his mind at rest by promising to take
some of the fowl to Mrs Wishing before she returned, that he was able
to abandon himself to thorough enjoyment. Lilac knew then by his
silence that her little feast was heartily appreciated, and she would
not disturb him by a word, although there were many things she wanted to
say. But at last Joshua had finished.

"A fatter fowl nor a finer, nor a better cooked one couldn't be," he
said, as he laid down his knife and fork. "Not a bit o' dryness in the
bird: juicy all through and as sweet as a nut."

Ready now for a little conversation, he puffed thoughtfully at his pipe
while Lilac stood near washing the dishes and plates.

"It's thirty years ago," he said, speaking in a jerky voice so as not to
interfere with the comfort of his pipe, "since I had a fowl for dinner--
and I mind very well when it was. It was my wedding-day. Away up in
the north it was, and parson gave the feast."

"Was that when you used to play the clar'net in church, Uncle?" asked
Lilac.

Joshua nodded.

"We was a clar'net and a fiddle and a bass viol," he said reflectively.
"Never kept time--the bass viol didn't. Couldn't never get it into his
head. He wasn't never any shakes of a player--and he was a good feller
too."

"Did they play at your wedding?" asked Lilac.

"They did that," he answered; "in church and likewise after the
ceremony. Lor'! to hear how the bass viol did tag behind in
_Rockingham_. I can hear him now. 'Twas like two solos being played,
as one might say. No unity at all. I never hear that tune now but what
it carries me back to my wedding-day and the bass viol; and the taste of
that fowl's done the same thing. It's a most pecooliar thing, is the
memory."

Lilac liked to hear Joshua talk about old days, but she was eager too to
tell her own news. There was so much that he did not know: all about
hay-harvest, and her butter-making, about Lenham fete, and her cousins,
and, finally, all about None-so-pretty and Peter. "I do think," she
added, "as how I like him best of any of 'em, for all they say he's so
common."

"Common or uncommon, they'd do badly without him," muttered Joshua.
"He's the very prop and pillar of the place, is Peter; if a wall's
strong