"Dear to be sure, how strange," put in Mrs. Cross, again pausing in the act of mastication, and preparing to listen to further details with heightened interest.
"Strange!" echoed the other. "Wait till ye hear the rest, then ye'll think it strange. By-and-by Robert pushed away his cup, 'I think I'll step out for a bit of a pipe, Mary,' says he to I. 'I wish ye good day, ma'am,' says he, noddin' his head at Mrs. Maidment. The door had no sooner shut behind en," she continued, leaning forward and speaking slowly and with great unction, "than Sarah she looks me full in the face, and says she, 'Mrs. Domeny,' she says, 'I do admire your husband. I think,' she says, 'he be a beautiful man.'"
"T'ch, t'ch, t'ch," commented the listener, clicking her tongue, for her astonishment at the sudden development was too great to find vent in mere words.
"'I do admire your husband,'" repeated Mrs. Domeny impressively. "That was what she said, 'he be a beautiful man.' 'Well,' said I, 'I'll not say nay to that, Mrs. Maidment. Him an' me have been married now goin' on fifteen year, an' all I can say about en is as if I were free to choose again, I'd choose the same.'
"'Ah,' says she, giving a kind of sigh, this way, ye know" (here Mrs. Domeny sighed noisily). "'Ah, I knowed he was good by the very looks of him. I am sure,' says she, 'he must come of a very respectable family.' So of course I did tell her as the Domenys was well known and respected in all the country round, and was real good old Darset stock. 'There never was a Domeny yet,' says I, 'as wasn't a credit to the country.' 'Ah,' says she, sighin' again, 'and I d' 'low, ma'am, they do make very good husbands.'
"'Ye mid be sure they do,' says I; 'I can speak up for my own man, and I think Mrs. Tom and Mrs. Ned can do the same for theirs.'
"'Be they all married?' axes she, very quick.
"Well, I looked at her--it did seem a particular kind of question, so to speak, an' she took a fit of coughin'" (here Mrs. Domeny simulated a genteel and hesitating attack of the infirmity in question), "an' at last, says she, very earnest, 'Bain't there one of them at all as hasn't got a wife?'
"'There is Brother John,' says I; 'his missus died two years ago, come Michaelmas. He's a very quiet man,' says I, 'very quiet.'