"Married a nief! has he?" returned De Boteler. "By my faith I thought the kern had too proud a stomach to wed a nief. I thought he had no such love for villeinage. I do not like those intermarriages. Were free maidens so scarce that this Holgrave could not find a wife among them?"
As soon as she was well enough the christening took place in Peasmarsh church. The heir of all the Backfields was important enough to receive three Christian namesReuben after his father, Thomas after old Gasson, and Albert after the Prince Consort. "I shall call him Albert," said Naomi."I d?an't want you to bless meand maybe you w?an't t?ake my terms."They did not murmur, for they had known no different life. They had never, like other girls, wandered with bevies of young people through the lanes at dusk, or felt in the twilight a man's hand grope for theirs. They had not had suitors to visit them on Sundays, to sit very stiff and straight in the parlour, and pass decorous remarks about the weather all the while their eyes were eating up a little figure from toe to hair.For the first time she began definitely to reproach herself for her treatment of Harry. Though she could never have married him, she could at least have been faithful to him.