“Stupid?  O no!” said Farfrae gravely.  “It will revolutionize sowing heerabout!  No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that some falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that.  Each grain will go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else whatever!”

“Then the romance of the sower is gone for good,” observed Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading at least. “‘He that observeth the wind shall not sow,’ so the Preacher said; but his words will not be to the point any more.  How things change!”

“Ay; ay....It must be so!” Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on a blank point far away.  “But the machines are already very common in the East and North of England,” he added apologetically.

Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance with the Scriptures being somewhat limited.  “Is the machine yours?” she asked of Farfrae.

“O no, madam,” said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was quite at his ease.  “No, no—­I merely recommended that it should be got.”

In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her; to have passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than she appertained to.  Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily to him—­

“Well, don’t forsake the machine for us,” and went indoors with her companion.

The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was unaccountable to her.  Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying when they were again in the sitting-room—­

“I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him this morning.”

Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day.  Together they saw the market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street endways and enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom.  The gigs and vans disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the street.  The time of the riding world was over the pedestrian world held sway.  Field labourers and their wives and children trooped in from the villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was nothing but the shuffle of many feet.  All the implements were gone; all the farmers; all the moneyed class.  The character of the town’s trading had changed from bulk to multiplicity and pence were handled now as pounds had been handled earlier in the day.

Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed.  In the faint blink of the fire they spoke more freely.

“Your father was distant with you,” said Lucetta.