the meal is over."

He thanked me very heartily. I showed him into the drawing-room, told my
wife where I was going, and not to wait dinner for me--I would take my
chance--and joined Mr. Stokes.

"You have no idea, then," I said, after we had gone about half-way, "what
makes your wife so uneasy?"

"No, I haven't," he answered; "except it be," he resumed, "that she was too
hard, as I thought, upon our Mary, when she wanted to marry beneath her, as
wife thought."

"How beneath her? Who was it she wanted to marry?"

"She did marry him, sir. She has a bit of her mother's temper, you see, and
she would take her own way."

"Ah, there's a lesson to mothers, is it not? If they want to have their own
way, they mustn't give their own temper to their daughters."

"But how are they to help it, sir?"

"Ah, how indeed? But what is your daughter's husband?"

"A labourer, sir. He works on a farm out by Carpstone."

"But you have worked on Mr. Barton's farm for many years, if I don't
mistake?"