"O mem -- don't ask me! Yielding women?" as
scarlet a pair as ever was!" groaned Henery under his
breath.
"Sit down.
"Who, mem?"
"Sit down,"
Joseph Poorgrass, in the background twitched, and
his lips became dry with fear of some terrible conse-
quences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and
Henery slinking off to a corner.
"Now the next. Laban Tall, you'll stay on working
for me?"
"For you or anybody that pays me well, ma'am,"
replied the young married man.
"True -- the man must live!" said a woman in the
back quarter, who had just entered with clicking pattens.
"What woman is that?" Bathsheba asked.
"I be his lawful wife!" continued the voice with
greater prominence of manner and tone. This lady
called herself five-and-twenty, looked thirty, passed as
thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never,
like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in
public, perhaps because she had none to show.
"Oh, you are." said Bathsheba. "Well, Laban, will
you stay on?"
"Yes, he'll stay, ma'am!" said again the shrill tongue
of Laban's lawful wife.
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