"Ay--the weather breaks. I hope theer'll be a drop more water down the
river bimebye. You got my letter all right?"

"Ess fay, else I shouldn't be here. And this tremendous matter in
hand?"

"I thought you'd guess what 't was. I be weary o' waitin' for 'e. An' as
I comed of age last month, I'm a man in law so well as larnin', and I'm
gwaine to speak to Miller Lyddon this very night."

Phoebe looked blank. There was a moment's silence while Will picked and
ate the wood-strawberries in his sweetheart's dress.

"Caan't 'e think o' nothin' wiser than to see faither?" she said at
last.

"Theer ban't nothin' wiser. He knaws we 'm tokened, and it's no manner
o' use him gwaine on pretendin' to himself 't isn't so. You 'm
wife-old, and you've made choice o' me; and I'm a ripe man, as have
thought a lot in my time, and be earnin' gude money and all. Besides, 't
is a dead-sure fact I'll have auld Morgan's place as head waterkeeper,
an' the cottage along with it, in fair time."

"Ban't for me to lift up no hindrances, but you knaw faither."

"Ess, I do--for a very stiff-necked man."

"Maybe 't is so; but a gude faither to me."

"An' a gude friend to me, for that matter. He aint got nothing 'gainst