r sorry, but
how dull and dreary she is, only herself can tell. When I get there in
the morning, there she is sitting up in bed, for my lady don't care to
get up; and then she makes me bring this book and that book, till the bed
is heaped up with immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, as
she leans upon her elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; then
she looks towards the tall glass; then she looks out at the weather,
mooning her great black eyes, and fixing them on the sky as if they stuck
there, while my tongue goes flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty words
a minute; then she looks at the clock; then she asks me what I've been
reading.'

'Ah, poor soul!' said granny. 'No doubt she says in the morning, "Would
God it were evening," and in the evening, "Would God it were morning,"
like the disobedient woman in Deuteronomy.'

Swithin, in the room overhead, had suspended his calculations, for the
duologue interested him. There now crunched heavier steps outside the
door, and his grandmother could be heard greeting sundry local
representatives of the bass and tenor voice, who lent a cheerful and well-
known personality to the names Sammy Blore, Nat Chapman, Hezekiah Biles,
and Haymoss Fry (the latter being one with whom the reader has already a
distant acquaintance); besides these came small producers of treble, who
had not yet developed into such distinctive units of society as to
require particularizing.

'Is the good man come?' asked Nat Chapman. 'No,--I see we be here afore
him. And how is it with aged women to-night, Mrs. Martin?'

'Tedious traipsing enough with this one, Nat. Sit ye down. Well, little
Freddy, you don't wish in the morning that 'twere evening, and at evening
that 'twere morning again, do you, Freddy, trust ye for it?'

'Now, who might wish such a thing as that, Mrs Martin?--nobody in this
parish?' asked Sammy Blore curiously.

'My lady is always wishing it,' spoke up Miss Tabitha Lark.

'Oh, she! Nobody can be answerable for the wishes of that onnatural
tribe of mankind. Not but that the woman's heart-strings is tried in
many aggravating ways.'

'Ah, poor woman!' said granny. 'The state she finds herself in--neither
maid, wife, nor widow, as you may say--is not the primest form of life
for keeping in good spirits. How long is it since she has heard from Sir
Blount, Tabitha?'

'Two years and more,' said the young woman. 'He went into one side of
Africa, as