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She went to meet Robbins at the gate and laid her hand kindly on his arm.

“Why, shepherd,” she said, and her pleasant voice assumed an inflection that was almost tender, “’tis never true what my husband tells me? You bain’t a-thinkin’ of leaving we? We couldn’t get on without ’ee.”

Sometimes an unexpected kind word from a person whom we have distrusted, and perhaps disliked, carries more weight than a similar one from a friend. Poor Robbins had been dogged and surly enough with the master whom he loved, but when the missus, with whom he had hitherto lived, as it were, on the defensive, spoke so gently and looked so kind, he gazed back at her astonished, softened, confounded.

And when she said again: “Why, shepherd, you bain’t goin’ to desert we?” he suddenly burst into tears.

“No ma’am,” he said brokenly. “I—I—what be I to do?” The tears were running down his face. “I d’ ’low I’d be loth to leave master.”

“Well, you mustn’t think on it,” returned Mrs. Joyce decidedly. “We couldn’t do without you. See—’tis all a bit o’ temper, bain’t it? You never truly meant to give notice?”