sense of who you are that you should think of Jenifer Keast?"

"She'm a fitty maid," muttered Archelaus.

"A fitty maid! Listen to the great bufflehead! She's fitty enough but
with nothing to her but the clothes on her back. You've no call to be
leading a maid toall yet. S'pose you was ever master of Cloom, what
would you be wanting with Jenifer Keast?"

"Master o' Cloom! That's plum foolishness. We all d'knaw I'd be master
o' Cloom if right were right, but there's the law siden' wi' the cheild;
devil run off wi' en!"

"If the devil don't somebody else might," said Tom, "and then Cloom'd be
mother's and ours. Eh, I wish I was the eldest; I'm the only one with a
headpiece on me."

"Th' cheild's healthy enough," grumbled Archelaus.

"My children are all healthy; I never buried but the one between Tom and
John-James and the one as never drew breath," interrupted Annie, "and if
the cheild is set up by the law he's your own flesh and blood. He would
have been as fine a cheild as any of 'ee if he'd kept his place."

"I'm not saying nothing against the brat," cried Tom in exasperated
tones; "anyone'd think I wanted'n to die by the way you go on at me. I
don't--it don't matter to me, for I'm going to be a lawyer like Mr.
Tonkin to Penzance, but Archelaus'll be a fool if he don't look higher
than Jenifer Keast."