“Oh yes; I know all about it! I told ’ee it would be all right, and now ’tis proved!”
“Since I’ve been away? What has?” said Tess rather wearily.
Her mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went on banteringly: “So you’ve brought ’em round!”
“How do you know, mother?”
“I’ve had a letter.”
Tess then remembered that there would have been time for this.
“They say— Mrs. d’Urberville says—that she wants you to look after a little fowl-farm which is her hobby. But this is only her artful way of getting ’ee there without raising your hopes. She’s going to own ’ee as kin—that’s the meaning o’t.”
“But I didn’t see her.”
“You zid somebody, I suppose?”
“I saw her son.”
“And did he own ’ee?”
“Well—he called me Coz.”
“An’ I knew it! Jacky—he called her Coz!” cried Joan to her husband. “Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want ’ee there.”
“But I don’t know that I am apt at tending fowls,” said the dubious Tess.
“Then I don’t know who is apt. You’ve be’n born in the business, and brought up in it. They that be born in a business always know more