"So, Mrs. Molie is nodding, too!" said Mr. Hoey, and smiled again. He was
intensely annoyed. Mrs. Molie turned pink and pretty.

At the next meal, Mr. Hoey could contain himself no longer.

"Ladies," he said, "mine eyes have now beheld Master Solem."

"Well?"

"Common sneak-thief!"

"Oh, shame!"

"You must admit he has a brazen look on his face. No beard. Blue chin, a
perfect horse-face...."

"There's no harm in that," said Mrs. Molie.

Mrs. Molie doesn't seem to have gone quite out of circulation after all, I
thought. In fact, she had lately been developing quite a little cushion
over her chest, and no longer looked so hunched up. She had eaten well and
slept well, and improved at this resort. Mrs. Molie, I suspect, still has
plenty of life left in her.

This proved true a few days later. Once again: poor Associate Master Hoey!
For now we had a new visitor at the farm, a gay dog of a lawyer, and he
talked more to Mrs. Molie than to anyone else. Had there been anything
between her and Mr. Hoey? True, he was not much to look at, but then
neither was she.