She had answered such questions on many occasions, when they
had not been asked in the manner in which her ladyship's sister asked
them. Mrs. Brent had scolded her and "poked about" her cottage, going
into her tiny "wash 'us," and up into her infinitesimal bedroom under
the slanting roof, to see that they were kept clean. Miss Vanderpoel
showed no disposition to "poke." She sat and listened, and made an
inquiry here and there, in a nice voice and with a smile in her
eyes. There was some pleasure in relating the whole history of your
eighty-three years to a young lady who listened as if she wanted to hear
it. So old Mrs. Welden prattled on. About her good days, when she was
young, and was kitchenmaid at the parsonage in a village twenty miles
away; about her marriage with a young farm labourer; about his "steady"
habits, and the comfort they had together, in spite of the yearly
arrival of a new baby, and the crowding of the bit of a cottage his
master allowed them. Ten of 'em, and it had been "up before sunrise, and
a good bit of hard work to keep them all fed and clean." But she had not
minded that until Jack died quite sudden after a sunstroke. It was odd
how much colour her rustic phraseology held.
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