ed with the bodice and skirt of fawn-coloured serge. Her
straight fringe that had had the merit of suiting her face was now
frizzed, while the rest of her hair was twisted into what was known as a
"tea-pot handle" at the back of her head.

Ishmael let her pull his head against the scratchy curves of braid, but
he was preoccupied and kept up a tattoo on the writing-table with a
paper-knife. There had been so many of these scenes since Nicky had been
growing up; Georgie had changed towards the boy ever since her own
children had been born. She was never unfair to him, but she seemed as
though always on the watch. He must not come near the babies with his
dirty boots on, must stay where he had been before he came near them at
all, for fear he had wandered where she considered there might be
infection. His dogs had come under the same ban, and one way and another
she had gone the right way to sicken Nicky of his little sisters if he
had not been both sweet-natured and rather impervious. Ishmael had
sometimes resented all this on Nicky's behalf, and then Georgie had
accused him of loving his son the most. Of course, she knew the others
were "only girls," and therefore she supposed of no interest to a
farmer.... Scenes such as this would end in penitence on her part and a
weary forgiveness on Ishmael's. He loved Georgie and all his children
deeply--perhaps his children meant something more to him--but he never
could quite do away with the feeling that there was something rather
absurd about the father of a family....

"What were you going to say about Nicky when I stopped you?" he asked.
"Where is it he goes? Is it anywhere in particular?"

"I thought you knew," said Georgie slowly, "though I might have known
you didn't; you never see anything, which may be very beautiful, but,
believe me, can be very trying to a poor female! If you really want to
know, he goes over to Penzance in his tandem every early-closing day to
take out Miss Polly Behenna--from Behenna the draper's in Market Jew
Street."

"Good Lord! ... there's nothing in it, is there?"

"I shouldn't think so; but you know how silly it is in a place like
this ... and she's a very pretty girl, and oh, so dreadfully genteel!"

"That'll save him, then! Dairymaids are far more dangerous. But, as you
say, it doesn't do.... I think there's something in the Canadian plan,"
he added to himself. He took up the lists of accounts he had been busy
on when first interrupted