"
"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?"
"I have, sir; but I am a sort of a foreman now, you see."
"But you weren't so always; and your son-in-law, whether he work his way up
or not, is, I presume, much where you were when you married Mrs. Stokes?"
"True as you say, sir; and it's not me that has anything to say about it. I
never gave the man a nay. But you see, my wife, she always do be wanting to
get her head up in the world; and since she took to the shopkeeping--"
"The shopkeeping!" I said, with some surprise; "I didn't know that."
"Well, you see, sir, it's only for a quarter or so of the year. You know
it's a favourite walk for the folks as comes here for the bathing--past our
house, to see the great cave down below; and my wife, she got a bit of a
sign put up, and put a few ginger-beer bottles in the window, and--"
"A bad place for the ginger-beer," I said.
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