The Woodlanders

She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by

nut-bushes, just now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and fours.

A little way on, the track she pursued was crossed by a similar one at

right angles. Here Grace stopped; some few yards up the transverse

ride the buxom Suke Damson was visible--her gown tucked up high through

her pocket-hole, and no bonnet on her head--in the act of pulling down

boughs from which she was gathering and eating nuts with great

rapidity, her lover Tim Tangs standing near her engaged in the same

pleasant meal.

Crack, crack went Suke's jaws every second or two. By an automatic

chain of thought Grace's mind reverted to the tooth-drawing scene

described by her husband; and for the first time she wondered if that

narrative were really true, Susan's jaws being so obviously sound and

strong. Grace turned up towards the nut-gatherers, and conquered her

reluctance to speak to the girl who was a little in advance of Tim.

"Good-evening, Susan," she said.

"Good-evening, Miss Melbury" (crack).

"Mrs. Fitzpiers."

"Oh yes, ma'am--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Suke, with a peculiar smile.

Grace, not to be daunted, continued: "Take care of your teeth, Suke.

That accounts for the toothache."

"I don't know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head, thank the

Lord" (crack).

"Nor the loss of one, either?"

"See for yourself, ma'am." She parted her red lips, and exhibited the

whole double row, full up and unimpaired.

"You have never had one drawn?"

"Never."

"So much the better for your stomach," said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an

altered voice. And turning away quickly, she went on.

As her husband's character thus shaped itself under the touch of time,

Grace was almost startled to find how little she suffered from that

jealous excitement which is conventionally attributed to all wives in

such circumstances. But though possessed by none of that feline

wildness which it was her moral duty to experience, she did not fail to

know that she had made a frightful mistake in her marriage.

Acquiescence in her father's wishes had been degradation to herself.

People are not given premonitions for nothing; she should have obeyed

her impulse on that early morning, and steadfastly refused her hand.

Oh, that plausible tale which her then betrothed had told her about

Suke--the dramatic account of her entreaties to him to draw the aching

enemy, and the fine artistic touch he had given to the story by

explaining that it was a lovely molar without a flaw!