slow
Manor every morning to her work. She was tall and very powerfully
built, her features were coarse and swollen, and there was something
repelling and yet fascinating to Biddy in her cunning, shifty glance.
The way in which she strode along the road, too, swinging a rake, or
hoe, or pitchfork in her hand, gave an impression of reckless strength
which made the little nurse-girl shudder, and yet she felt unable to
remove her gaze as long as the woman was in sight.

One day as Biddy was hastening home from an errand in the village she
saw this well-known figure coming towards her with its usual rolling
movement, and to her surprise it came to a stand in front of her, and,
leaning on the handle of its pitchfork, surveyed her with a sort of
leer. Biddy stopped too, and they looked at each for a minute in
silence. Then the woman spoke:

"You be the new gal yonder?" she said with a jerk of her head.

"I'm Mrs Roy's nurse," replied Biddy, trembling a little, yet with some
dignity.

The woman chuckled hoarsely.

"You don't sleep much at nights, I reckon?" she continued.

"Yes, thank you," said Biddy, who had been taught to be always polite;
"the baby doesn't cry scarcely any."

For all answer the woman gave a loud stupid laugh and strode away,
leaving Biddy standing in the road much discomfited. She stared after
her for a moment and then hurried back to Truslow Manor, and told her
mistress of the meeting.

"Oh!" said Mrs Roy quickly, "that was only poor Crazy Sall. She's half
silly, and she has dreadful fits of drinking, besides. You mustn't mind
anything she said to you, and you must promise never to speak to her
again, or take any notice of her at all."

"I won't, mum," said Biddy; and indeed she did not feel anxious for
Crazy Sall's further acquaintance, though the failing mentioned by her
mistress did not surprise or shock her, she knew too many people in the
neighbourhood of Buzley's Court who were troubled in the same way.

"And," continued Mrs Roy, looking earnestly at Biddy, "I want you to
promise me another thing, and that is, _never_ to stop and listen to any
gossip when I send you into the village."

Biddy promised that too; but it was not quite so easy to keep this
promise as the first, for she was a sociable character, and in London
had become quite used to enjoying fragments of chat on door-steps and
elsewhere. When, therefore, in the baker's shop at Wavebury, which was
also the post-office,