"You'm a bowerly maiden," she said, with extreme frankness. "So lovely as the bud o' the briar in June; an' Dartymoor will make a queen of 'e afore long. Fresh air, an' sweet water, an' miles of heather to ride over. Your eyes be old friends to me, miss--the brown of the leaves in autumn--just like my dead sister's."
"I have my father's eyes," said Grace; but Dinah questioned it.
"His be darker far. There ban't no storm in yours--they don't flash lightning. An', please God, they'll have no cause to rain either. Wealth's a wonderful thing, though what's best worth money ban't purchasable all the same."
Richard Beer had arrived and heard his wife's platitude.
"Money's a power 'pon Dartymoor, however," he said, "an' I'm glad the master 'pears to be made of it, if I may say so without offence, Miss."
"Not at all," declared Grace. "Father isn't made of money, and you mustn't think so. He looks for a return very soon for all his outlay."
Beer touched his hat with great respect before answering.
"As to that, mustn't count on no miracles, Miss Malherb. The master be larning that a'ready. Us can't go no quicker'n Nature's own gait. She won't be pushed because a chap here an' there goes bankrupt. 'Tis only at love-making she works so fast, not at farm-making."
"Her ways do often look slow to a man in a hurry," said Dinah.
"But us have got to wait for 'em to work, all the same," concluded Beer, "an' all the cusses of David never made one blade o' grass sprout so quick as a drop of warm rain."
This apparent allusion to her father's forcible modes of speech saddened Grace.
"'Tis very true," she answered, then turned to the house and went in to breakfast.
Three months after the arrival of Maurice Malherb's family at Fox Tor Farm, a visitor appeared to spend some days with them. Mr. Peter Norcot set out from his home at Chagford and rode across the Moor on a fine morning in July; while before him at dawn a pack-horse with his luggage had started upon the same journey. Leaving certain final directions at the great factory by Teign River, in which he was a partner, the wool-stapler ascended from his home to Dartmoor, climbed a broad common or two, and in little more than an hour after noon he trotted southward over the mighty crest of Hameldon.