"I've had this years an' years. My father gave it to me."

"Well, if he gave it you so long ago as that it can't be the same, I
suppose, but it's wonderful like it. I wonder wheer he got it. It's a
pity we can't ask him, but he's dead, as how 'tis, poor fellow! Coom,
pull up an' tak' your breakfast."

John dutifully drew his chair to the table, but he felt as though
every morsel choked him. His own falsehood, to begin with, stuck in
his throat, while the thought of Sally's possible perfidy seemed to
turn the wholesome farmhouse bread to sand in his mouth. Was it
possible, could it be possible, that this love-token of hers was
stolen? Had she dared to offer him that which it was a disgrace to
possess If such were the case, of what avail was all his teaching? To
what purpose had he stooped to associate so constantly with one so
much beneath him?

Meanwhile the eyes of all the Waring family were fixed upon his
luckless neckerchief in a manner which made him feel more and more
uncomfortable; and he was fairly beside himself when, after church,
his aunt informed him that she was thinking of axin' Margery Formby,
who was Mrs. Lambert's sister, to step round after dinner and have a
look at it, "It's so amazin' like the one Mr. Lambert lost, I reckon
it 'ud be a kind o' comfort if hoo could tell Mrs. Lambert hoo needn't
set sich store by it, as sich things is easy to be got."

"Well, aunt, I'm not goin' to stop in to have Margery Formby pokin'
and pryin' at my things. I never see such queer folk in my life.
'Tisn't thought manners in other places to be passin' remarks an'