“‘It never rains but it pours,’” said Widow Coomstock.  She giggled again and looked at Billy.  She was very fat, and the red of her face deepened to purple unevenly about the sides of her nose.  Her eyes were bright and black.  She had opened a button or two at the top of her dress, and her general appearance, from her grey hair to her slattern heels, was disordered.  Her cap had fallen off on to the ground, and Mr. Blee noticed that her parting was as a broad turnpike road much tramped upon by Time.  The room smelt stuffy beyond its wont and reeked not only of spirits but tobacco.  This Billy sniffed inquiringly, and Mrs. Coomstock observed the action. “’Twas Lezzard,” she said.  “I like to see a man in comfort.  You can smoke if you mind to.  Coomstock always done it, and a man’s no man without, though a dirty habit wheer they doan’t use a spittoon.”

She smiled, but to herself, and was lost in thought a moment.  He saw her eyes very bright and her head wagging.  Then she looked at him and laughed again.

“You’m a fine figure of a man, tu,” she said, apropos of nothing in particular.  But the newcomer understood.  He rumpled his hair and snorted and frowned at the empty glasses.

“Have a drop?” suggested Mrs. Coomstock; but Billy, of opinion that his love had already enjoyed refreshment sufficient for the time, refused and answered her former remark.

“A fine figure?—­yes, Mary Coomstock, though not so fine for a man as you for a woman.  Still, a warm-blooded chap an’ younger than my years.”

“I’ve got my share o’ warm blood, tu, Billy.”

It was apparent.  Mrs. Coomstock’s plump neck bulged in creases over the dirty scrap of white linen that represented a collar, while her massive bust seemed bursting through her apparel.

“Coourse,” said Mr. Blee, “an’ your share, an’ more ‘n your share o’ brains, tu.  He had bad luck—­Coomstock—­the worse fortune as ever fell to a Chaggyford man, I reckon.”

“How do ’e come at that, then?”

“To get ‘e, an’ lose ’e again inside two year.  That’s ill luck if ever I seen it.  Death’s a envious twoad.  Two short year of you; an’ then up comes a tumour on his neck unbeknawnst, an’ off he goes, like a spring lamb.”

“An’ so he did.  I waked from sleep an’ bid un rise, but theer weern’t no more risin’ for him till the Judgment.”

“Death’s no courtier.  He’ll let a day-labourer go so peaceful an’ butivul as a child full o’ milk goes to sleep; while he’ll take a gert lord or dook, wi’ lands an’ moneys, an’ strangle un by inches, an’ give un the hell of a twistin’.  You caan’t buy a easy death seemin’ly.”

“A gude husband he was, but jealous,” said Mrs. Coomstock, her thoughts busy among past years; and Billy immediately fell in with this view.

“Then you’m well rid of un.  Theer’s as gude in the world alive any minute as ever was afore or will be again.”

“Let ’em stop in the world then.  I doan’t want ’em.”