d, against my reason. You'd think that
was absurd, and yet you'll hardly find a man, even among the upper
educated people, who haven't got his little weak spots like that, and
don't do some things that he knows be silly, even while he's doing 'em.
They cast him down at the moment; and he'll even make resolves to be more
open-handed, or more close-fisted, as the case may be, but the weakness
lies in your nature, and you could no more cure me from being small-minded
with my manure than you could have cured Mary from shivering to her spine
every time she saw a single magpie, or spilled the salt.

A very impulsive woman, and yet, as you may say, a very keen and clever
one in many respects. I don't think she ever wanted to marry and certainly
I can call home no adventures in the way of courting that fell to her lot.
And yet a pleasant woman, though not comely. In fact, without unkindness,
she might have been called a terribly ugly woman. Yellow as a guinea, with
gingery hair, yellow eyes, and no figure to save her. You would have
thought her property might have drawn an adventurer or two, for Little
Sherberton was a tenement farm and Mary's very own; but nobody came along,
or if they did, they only looked and passed by; and though Mary had no
objection to men in general, she didn't encourage them. But in her case,
without a doubt, they'd have needed all the encouragement she could give
'em, besides the property, to have a dash at her.

So she bided a spinster woman, and took very kindly to my childer, who
would run up over to her when they could, for they loved her. And by the
same token, my second daughter, by the name of Daisy, was drowned in Dart,
poor little maid, trying to go up to her aunt. My wife had whipped her for
naughtiness, and the child--only ten she was--went off to get comfort from
Mary and fell in the river with none to save her. So I've paid my toll to
Dart, you see, like many another man in these parts.

Well, my sister, same as a good many other terrible ugly women, got better
to look at as she grew older; and after she was sixty, her hair turned
white and she filled out a bit. Her voice was always a pleasant thing
about her. It reflected her nature, which was kindly, though excitable.
But her people never left her. She'd got a hind and his wife--Noah and
Jane Sweet by name; and he was head man; and his son, Shem Sweet, came
next--thirty year old he was; and besides them was Nelly Pearn, dairymaid,
and t