ch of my time is consumed in passing between Milford and Surrey,
you perceive."

"I will go with you often."

According to habit, on arriving, I went into the kitchen. It was dusk
there, and still. Temperance was by the fire, attending to something
which was cooking.

"What is there for supper, Temperance? I am hungry."

"I spose you are," she answered crossly. "You'll see when it's on the
table."

She took a coal of fire with the tongs, and blew it fiercely, to
light a lamp by. When it was alight, she set it on the chimney-shelf,
revealing thereby a man at the back of the room, balancing his chair
on two legs against the wail; his feet were on its highest round, and
he twirled his thumbs.

"Hum," he said, when he saw me observing him; "this is the oldest
darter, is it?"

"Yes," Temperance bawled.

"She is a good solid gal; but I can't recollect her christened name."

"It is Cassandra."

"Why, 'taint Scriptur'."

"Why don't you go and take off your things?" Temperance asked,
abruptly.

"I'll leave them here; the fire is agreeable."

"There is a better fire in the keeping-room."

"How are you, Mr. Handy?" father inquired, coming in.

"I should be well, if my grinders didn't trouble me; they play the
mischief o'nights. Have you heard from the _Adamant_, Mr. Morgeson?
I should like to get my poor boy's chist. The Lord ha' mercy on him,
whose bones are in the caverns of the deep."

"Now, Abram, do shut up. Tea is ready, Mr. Morgeson. I'll bring in the
ham directly," said Temperance.

There was no news from the _Adamant_. I lingered in the hope of
discovering why Mr. Handy irritated Temperance. He was a man of sixty,
with a round head, and a large, tender wart on one cheek; the two
tusks under his upper lip suggested a walrus. Though he was no beauty,
he looked thoroughly respectable, in garments whose primal colors
had disappeared, and blue woolen stockings gartered to a miracle of
tightness.

"Temperance," he said, "my quinces have done fust rate this year. I
haint pulled 'em yet; but I've counted them over and over agin. But my
pig wont weigh nothin' like what I calkerlated on. Sarved me right. I
needn't have bought him out of a drove; if Charity had been alive, I
shouldn't ha' done it. A man can't--I say, Tempy--a man _can't_ git
along while here below, without a woman."

She gave my arm a severe pinch as she passed with the ham, and I
thought it best to follow her. Mother looked at her with a