in, "Tulips in August! That is like the rest of it. However, I
am not going to be put out, when I feel that I have not done a single
bit of harm." And she tried to be happy with her flowers, but could not
enter into them as before.

Mistress Anerley was as good as her word, at the very first opportunity.
Her husband returned from the clover-stack tired and hungry, and angry
with a man who had taken too much beer, and ran at him with a pitchfork;
angry also with his own son Willie for not being anywhere in the way to
help. He did not complain; and his wife knew at once that he ought to
have done so, to obtain relief. She perceived that her own discourse
about their daughter was still on his mind, and would require working
off before any more was said about it. And she felt as sure as if she
saw it that in his severity against poor Willie--for not doing things
that were beneath him--her master would take Mary's folly as a joke,
and fall upon her brother, who was so much older, for not going on to
protect and guide her. So she kept till after supper-time her mouthful
of bad tidings.

And when the farmer heard it all, as he did before going to sleep that
night, he had smoked three pipes of tobacco, and was calm; he had sipped
(for once in a way) a little Hollands, and was hopeful. And though he
said nothing about it, he felt that without any order of his, or so much
as the faintest desire to be told of it, neither of these petty comforts
would bear to be rudely examined of its duty. He hoped for the best,
and he believed the best, and if the king was cheated, why, his loyal
subject was the same, and the women were their masters.

"Have no fear, no fear," he muttered back through the closing gate of
sleep; "Mary knows her business--business--" and he buzzed it off into a
snore.

In the morning, however, he took a stronger and more serious view of the
case, pronouncing that Mary was only a young lass, and no one could ever
tell about young lasses. And he quite fell into his wife's suggestion,
that the maid could be spared till harvest-time, of which (even with the
best of weather) there was little chance now for another six weeks, the
season being late and backward. So it was resolved between them both
that the girl should go on the following day for a visit to her uncle
Popplewell, some miles the other side of Filey. No invitation was
required; for Mr. and Mrs. Popplewell, a snug and comfortable pair,
were only too glad