IN WHICH A WOMAN HAS HER WAY

TEN days later, Rolfe, going down river in his barge, touched at my wharf, and finding me there walked with me toward the house.

“I have not seen you since you laughed my advice to scorn — and took it,” he said. “Where’s the farthingale, Benedick the married man?”

“In the house.”

“Oh, ay!” he commented. “It’s near to supper time. I trust she’s a good cook?”

“She does not cook,” I said dryly. “I have hired old Goody Cotton to do that.”

He eyed me closely. “By all the gods! a new doublet! She is skillful with her needle, then?”