He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at Affery Flintwinch making the bed.
‘ Affery, you were not married when I went away.’
She screwed her mouth into the form of saying ‘No,’ shook her head, and proceeded to get a pillow into its case.
‘ How did it happen?’
‘ Why, Jeremiah, o’ course,’ said Affery, with an end of the pillow-case between her teeth.
‘ Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about? I should have thought that neither of you would have married; least of all should I have thought of your marrying each other.’
‘ No more should I,’ said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly in its case.
‘ That’s what I mean. When did you begin to think otherwise?’
‘ Never begun to think otherwise at all,’ said Mrs Flintwinch.
Seeing, as sh
