und himself humming:

'That flood strewed wrecks upon the grass,
That ebb swept out the flocks to sea.

There isn't a rose left, Rhoda!

An awesome ebb and flow it was
To many more than mine and me.
But each will mourn his ...

It'll cost me a hundred.'

'Now we know the worst,' said Rhoda, 'we can go to bed. I'll lay on the
kitchen sofa. His light's burnin' still.'

'And _she_?'

'Dirty old cat! You ought to 'ear 'er snore!'

At ten o'clock in the morning, after a maddening hour in his own garden
on the edge of the retreating brook, Midmore went off to confront more
damage at Sidney's. The first thing that met him was the pig, snowy
white, for the water had washed him out of his new sty, calling on high
heaven for breakfast. The front door had been forced open, and the flood
had registered its own height in a brown dado on the walls. Midmore
chased the pig out and called up the stairs.

'I be abed o' course. Which step 'as she rose to?' Sidney cried from
above. 'The fourth? Then it's beat all records. Come up.'

'Are you ill?' Midmore asked as he entered the room. The red eyelids
blinked cheerfully. Mr. Sidney, beneath a sumptuous patch-work quilt,
was smoking.

'Nah! I'm only thankin' God I ain't my own landlord. Take that cheer.
What's she done?'

'It hasn't gone down enough for me to make sure.'

'Them floodgates o' yourn'll be middlin' far down the brook by now; an'
your rose-garden have gone after 'em. I saved my chickens, though. You'd
better get Mus' Sperrit to take the law o' Lotten an' 'is fish-pond.'

'No, thanks. I've trouble enough without that.'

'Hev ye?' Mr. Sidney grinned. 'How did ye make out with those two women
o' mine last night? I lay they fought.'

'You infernal old scoundrel!' Midmore laughed.

'I be--an' then again I bain't,' was the placid answer. 'But, Rhoda,
_she_ wouldn't ha' left me last night. Fire or flood, she wouldn't.'

'Why didn't you ever marry her?' Midmore asked.

'Waste of good money. She was willin' without.'

There was a step on the gritty mud below, and a voice humming. Midmore
rose quickly saying: 'Well, I suppose you're all right now.'

'I be. I ain't a landlord, nor I ain't young--nor anxious. Oh, Mus'
Midmore! Would it make any odds about her thirty pounds comin' regular
if I married her? Charlie said maybe 'twould.'

'Did he?' Midmore turned at the door. 'And what did Jimmy say about it?'

'Jimmy?' Mr. Sidney chuckled