"Thank you, Mr. Thorpe!" said Walden with his usual patient courtesy--"Thank you very much! I will certainly come. Glad to hear the cow is better. And is Miss Thorpe well?"
"She's that foine,"--rejoined the farmer--"that only the pigs can beat 'er! I'll be tellin' 'er you'll coom to-morrer then?"
"Oh yes--by all means! Certainly! Most kind of you, I'm sure! Good- evening, Thorpe!"
"Same t'ye, Passon, an' thank ye kindly!" Whereat John escaped at last into his own solitary sanctum.
"My work!" he said, with a faint smile, as he seated himself at his desk--"I must do my work! I must attend to the pigs as much as anything else in the parish! My work!"