missus of my house
to-morrow, and what'll it matter her then what they say? But, squoire
did ye hear if the Baro-nite had been a' hanging about that place?'

'About Islington, you mean.'

'He goes a hanging about; he do. He don't come out straight forrard,
and tell a girl as he loves her afore all the parish. There ain't one
in Bungay, nor yet in Mettingham, nor yet in all the Ilketsals and all
the Elmhams, as don't know as I'm set on Ruby Ruggles. Huggery-Muggery
is pi'son to me, squoire.'

'We all know that when you've made up your mind, you have made up your
mind.'

'I hove. It's made up ever so as to Ruby. What sort of a one is her
aunt now, squoire?'

'She keeps lodgings;--a very decent sort of a woman I should say.'

'She won't let the Baro-nite come there?'

'Certainly not,' said Roger, who felt that he was hardly dealing
sincerely with this most sincere of meal-men. Hitherto he had shuffled
off every question that had been asked him about Felix, though he knew
that Ruby had spent many hours with her fashionable lover. 'Mrs Pipkin
won't let him come there.'

'If I was to give her a ge'own now,--or a blue cloak;--them
lodging-house women is mostly hard put to it;--or a chest of drawers
like, for her best bedroom, wouldn't that make her more o' my side,
squoire?'

'I think she'll try to do her duty without that.'

'They do like things the like o' that; any ways I'll go up, squoire,
arter Sax'nam market, and see how things is lying.'

'I wouldn't go just yet, Mr Crumb, if I were you. She hasn't forgotten
the scene at the farm yet.'

'I said nothing as wasn't as kind as kind.'

'But her own perversity runs in her own head. If you had been unkind
she could have forgiven that; but as you were good-natured and she was
cross, she can't forgive that.' John Crumb again scratched his head,
and felt that the depths of a woman's character required more gauging
than he had yet given to it. 'And to tell you the truth, my friend, I
think that a little hardship up at Mrs Pipkin's will do her good.'

'Don't she have a bellyful o' vittels?' asked John Crumb, with intense
anxiety.

'I don't quite mean that. I dare say she has enough to eat. But of
course she has to work for it with her aunt. She has three or four
children to look after.'

'That moight come in handy by-and-by;--moightn't it, squoire?' said John
Crumb grinning.

'As you say, she'll be learning something that may be useful to her in
another sph