for you when you wed her parent."

"It does look like that to a plain sight," admitted Nelly, "but in truth
things be very different. And for your confidence, in strict secrecy, I
can give you mine. Warner don't want her to go. He badly wants me and her
both, while, for her part, she don't want to go and hates the thought;
but, so far, she's determined to do so if I come."

"That ain't love, however," argued Mr. Ball.

"It ain't," admitted Nelly Bascombe, "and you mustn't fox yourself to
think she'll come to you for love. A good helper she'd be to any man in
her own way; but she belongs to the order of women who can't love very
grand as a wife. She do love as a daughter can love a father, however, and
it's very clear to me that John Warner is her life in a manner of
speaking. On the other hand, it would upset her existence to the very
roots if I went to Wych Elm at farmer's right hand, where naturally I
should be."

Mr. Ball listened and nodded, and his blue eyes rested upon Mrs.
Bascombe's grey ones.

"You throw a great light," he said. "In a word, there was deeper reasons
far than any growing affection for me that have made her so on-coming of
late?"

"God forbid as I should suggest such a thing as that," answered Nelly.
"You're a sort of man to please any woman, if I may say so; but I'm only
telling you what lies in her mind. And I'll say more in fairness to the
both of you. Her father don't believe there is a man after her at all.