255

WHEN DEEP SLEEP FALLETH 267

THE EXCELLENT JOYS OF YOUTH 283

CARES OF A CURATE 297

A SHEAF OF CORN

WOMEN O' DULDITCH

Dinah Brome stood in the village shop, watching, with eyes keen to
detect the slightest discrepancy in the operation, the weighing of her
weekly parcels of grocery.

She was a strong, wholesome-looking woman of three- or four-and-forty,
with a clean, red skin, clear eyes, dark hair, crinkling crisply
beneath her sober, respectable hat. All her clothes were sober and
respectable, and her whole mien. No one would have guessed from it that
she had not a shred of character to her back.

The knowledge of this incontrovertible fact did not influence the
demeanour of the shop-woman towards her. There was not better pay in
the village, nor a more constant customer than Dinah Brome. In such
circumstances, Mrs Littleproud was not the woman to throw stones.

"They tell me as how Depper's wife ain't a-goin' to get over this here
sickness she've got," she said, tucking in the edges of the
whitey-brown paper upon the half-pound of moist sugar taken from the
scales. "The doctor, he ha'n't put a name to her illness, but 'tis one
as'll carry her off, he say."

"A quarter pound o' butter," Dinah unmovedly said. "The best, please. I
don't fancy none o' that that ha' got the taste o' the shop in it."

"Doctor, he put his hid in at the door this afternoon," Mrs Littleproud
went on; "he'd got his monkey up, the old doctor had! ''Tis a rank
shame,' he say, 'there ain't none o' these here lazy women o' Dulditch
with heart enough to go to help that poor critter in her necessity,' he
say."

"Ler'm help her hisself," said Mrs Brome, strong in her indifference.
"A couple o' boxes o' matches, Mrs Littleproud; and you can gi' me the
odd ha'penny in clo' balls for the disgestion."

"You should ha' heered 'm run on! 'Where be that Dinah Brome?' he say,
'that ha' showed herself helpful in other folks' houses. Wha's she
a-doin' of, that she can't do a neighbour's part here?'"

"And you telled 'm she was a-mindin' of 'er own business, I hope?" Mrs
Brome suggested, in calmest unconcern.

"I'll tell you what I did say, Dinah, bor," the shop-woman said,
transferring the sticky clove-balls from their bottle to her own greasy
palm. "'Dinah Brome, sir,' I say, 'is the most industrousest woman in
Dulditch; arl