"Would you say as I didn't ought to meddle in her affairs no more?" he
asked. "You see, I've comed to feel very kindly to the lovely creature,
and I'd work my fingers to the bone to find the man worthy of her; but if
I'm too pushing--"

"Pushing!" she said. "God's light! You be a lot too retreating, Jack, and
always was. Because you've got a face full of character, unlike other
men's, why for should you suppose 'twas a bug-a-boo to frighten the woman?
Don't your heart look out of your eyes, you silly man? How old are you?"

"Forty," answered Jack.

"And she's twenty-five, ain't she?"

"Who?" asked Jack.

"You did out to be put in an asylum, though, my son," said Mrs. Cobley.
"Milly Boon is the woman I'm aiming at, and it may or may not interest you
to larn that she loves you better than anything on earth--you--you she
loves, you gert tomfool!"

Jack looked as if he'd been struck by lightning and his pipe fell out of
his mouth and broke on the hearth.

"'Tis most any odds you're mistook," he said, with a voice that showed
what a shock he'd suffered. "Such things be contrary to nature."

"Nought's contrary to nature where a woman's concerned," answered Mrs.
Cobley as one who knew. "They be higher than nature, and a young woman in