'I cannot abide him; I could ha' pinched father when he asked him for t' come in.' 'Maybe, he'll not stay long,' said Philip, hardly understanding the meaning of what he said, so sweet was it to have her making her whispered confidences to him.
But Simpson was not going to let her alone in the dark corner between the door and the window.

He began paying her some coarse country compliments--too strong in their direct flattery for even her father's taste, more especially as he saw by his wife's set lips and frowning brow how much she disapproved of their visitor's style of conversation.
'Come, measter, leave t' lass alone; she's set up enough a'ready, her mother makes such a deal on her.

Yo' an' me's men for sensible talk at our time o' life.

An', as I was saying, t' horse was a weaver if iver one was, as any one could ha' told as had come within a mile on him.' And in this way the old farmer and the bluff butcher chatted on about horses, while Philip and Sylvia sate together, he turning over all manner of hopes and projects for the future, in spite of his aunt's opinion that he was too 'old-fashioned' for her dainty, blooming daughter.

Perhaps, too, Mrs.Robson saw some reason for changing her mind on this head as she watched Sylvia this night, for she accompanied Philip to the door, when the time came for him to start homewards, and bade him 'good-night' with unusual fervour, adding-- 'Thou'st been a deal o' comfort to me, lad--a'most as one as if thou wert a child o' my own, as at times I could welly think thou art to be.