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The Shuttle Chapter 24 - The Political Economy of Stornham · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXIV. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF STORNHAM The satin-skinned chestnut
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Speaker 1: was one of the new horses now standing in the
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Speaker 1: Stornham stables. There were several of them, a pair for
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Speaker 1: the land oar, saddle-horses, smart young cobs for the phaeton
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Speaker 1: or dog-cart, a pony for Uhtred, the animals necessary at
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Speaker 1: such a place as Stornham. The stables themselves had been
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Speaker 1: quickly put in order. Grooms and stable-boys kept them as
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Speaker 1: they had not been kept for years. The men learned
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Speaker 1: in a week's time that their work could not be
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Speaker 1: done too well. There were new carriages as well as horses.
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Speaker 1: They had come from London after Lady Anstruthers and her
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Speaker 1: sister returned from town. The horses had been brought down
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Speaker 1: by their grooms, immensely looked after, blanketed, hooded, and altogether
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Speaker 1: cared for as if they were visiting dukes and duchesses.
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Speaker 1: They were all fine, handsome, carefully chosen creatures. When they
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Speaker 1: danced and sidled through the village on their way to
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Speaker 1: the court, they created a sensation. Whosoever had chosen them
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Speaker 1: had known his business. The older vehicles had been repaired
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Speaker 1: in the village by tread, and did him credit. Fox
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Speaker 1: had also done his work well. Plenty more of it
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Speaker 1: had come into their workshops. Tools to be used on
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Speaker 1: the estate, garden implements, wheelbarrows, lawn rollers, things needed about
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Speaker 1: the house, stables and cottages were to be attended to.
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Speaker 1: The church roof was being repaired. Taking all these things
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Speaker 1: and the doing up of the court itself, there was
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Speaker 1: more work than the village could manage, and carpenters, bricklayers,
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Speaker 1: and decorators were necessarily brought from other places. Still, Joe
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Speaker 1: Butler and Sim Soames were allowed to lead in all
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Speaker 1: such things as lay within their capabilities. It was they
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Speaker 1: who made such a splendid job of the entrance gates
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Speaker 1: and the lodges. It was astonishing how much was done,
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Speaker 1: and how the sense of life in the air, the
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Speaker 1: work of resulting prosperity, made men begin to tread with
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Speaker 1: less listless steps than as they went to and from
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Speaker 1: their labour. In the cottages things were being done which
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Speaker 1: made downcast women bestir themselves and look less slatternly. Leeks
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Speaker 1: mended here, windows there, the hopeless copper in the tiny
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Speaker 1: wash-house replaced by a new one, chimneys cured of the
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Speaker 1: habit of smoking, a clean flowered paper put on a wall,
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Speaker 1: a coat of whitewash— they were small matters, but produced great effect.
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Speaker 1: Betty had begun to drop into the cottages and make
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Speaker 1: the acquaintance of their owners. Her first visits, she observed,
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Speaker 1: created great consternation. Women looked frightened or sullen, children stared
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Speaker 1: and refused to speak, clinging to skirts and aprons. She
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Speaker 1: found the atmosphere clear after her second visit. The women
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Speaker 1: began to talk, and the children collected in groups and
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Speaker 1: listened with cheerful grins. She could pick up little Jane's kitten,
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Speaker 1: or give a pat to small Thomas Mungrel Dog, in
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Speaker 1: a manner which threw down barriers.' Don' t put out your pipe,'
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Speaker 1: she said to old Grandfather Dobie. rising totteringly respectful from
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Speaker 1: his chimney-side chair.' You have only just lighted it. You
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Speaker 1: mustn't waste a whole pipeful of tobacco because I've come in.'
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Speaker 1: The old man, grown childish with age, tittered and shuffled
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Speaker 1: and giggled. Such a joke as the grand young lady
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Speaker 1: was having with him. She saw he had only just
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Speaker 1: lighted his pipe. The gentry joked a bit sometimes, but
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Speaker 1: he was afraid of his grandson's wife, who was frowning
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Speaker 1: and shaking her head. Betty went to him and put
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Speaker 1: her hand on his arm.' Sit down,' she said,' and
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Speaker 1: I will sit by you.' And she sat down and
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Speaker 1: showed him that she had brought a package of tobacco
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Speaker 1: with her, and actually a wonder of a red and
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Speaker 1: yellow jar to hold it, at the sight of which
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Speaker 1: unheard-of joys his rapture was so great that his trembling
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Speaker 1: hands could scarcely clasp his treasures.' He- he- he- he, deary me, thank ye,
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Speaker 1: thank ye, my lady,' he tittered, and he gazed and
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Speaker 1: blinked at her beauty through heavenly tears. nearly a hundred
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Speaker 1: years old, and he has lived on sixteen shillings a
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Speaker 1: week all his life, and earned it by working every
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Speaker 1: hour between sunrise and sunset, Betty said to her sister
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Speaker 1: when she went home. A man has one life, and
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Speaker 1: his has passed like that. It is done now, and
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Speaker 1: all the years and work have left nothing in his
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Speaker 1: old hands but his pipe. That's all. I should not
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Speaker 1: like to put it out for him. Who am I
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Speaker 1: that I can buy him a new one, and keep
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Speaker 1: it filled for him until the end? How did it happen?' No, suddenly,
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Speaker 1: I must not lose time in asking myself that. I
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Speaker 1: must get the new pipe. She did it, a pipe
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Speaker 1: of great magnificence, such as drew to the Dobie cottage
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Speaker 1: as many callers as the village could provide, each coming
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Speaker 1: with fevered interest to look at it, to be allowed
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Speaker 1: to hold and examine it for a few moments, guessing
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Speaker 1: at its probable enormous cost, and returning it reverently, to
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Speaker 1: gaze at Dobie with respect, the increase of which can
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Speaker 1: be imagined when it was known that he was not
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Speaker 1: only possessor of the pipe, but of an assurance that
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Speaker 1: he would be supplied with as much tobacco as he
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Speaker 1: could use to the end of his days. From the
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Speaker 1: time of the advent of the pipe, Grandfather Dobie became
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Speaker 1: a man of mark, and his life in the chimney-corner
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Speaker 1: a changed thing. A man who owns splendours and unlimited
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Speaker 1: excellence shag may like friends to drop in and crack jokes,
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Speaker 1: and even smoke a pipe with him, a common pipe, which, however,
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Speaker 1: is not amiss when excellence shag comes free. he lives
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Speaker 1: in a wild whirl of gaiety a social vortex said
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Speaker 1: betty to lady anstruthers after one of her visits he
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Speaker 1: is actually rejuvenated i must order some new white smocks
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Speaker 1: for him to receive his visitors in someone brought him
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Speaker 1: an old copy of the illustrated london news last night
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Speaker 1: we will send him illustrated papers every week in the
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Speaker 1: dull old brain god knows what spark of life had
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Speaker 1: been relighted young mrs dobey related with chuckles that grandad
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Speaker 1: had begged that his chair might be dragged to the
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Speaker 1: window that he might sit and watch the village street.
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Speaker 1: Sitting there, day after day, he smoked and looked at
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Speaker 1: his pictures, and dozed and dreamed, his pipe and tobacco-jar
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Speaker 1: beside him on the window-ledge. At any sound of wheels
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Speaker 1: or footsteps his face lighted, and if by chance he
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Speaker 1: caught a glimpse of Betty he tottered to his feet,
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Speaker 1: and stood hurriedly touching his bald forehead with a reverend
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Speaker 1: palsied hand.' Tis her,' he would say, and rapped,' I
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Speaker 1: seen her, I did.' and young Mrs. Dobie knew that
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Speaker 1: this was his joy, and what he waited for as
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Speaker 1: one waits for the coming of the sun.' Tis er,
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Speaker 1: tis er! The vicar's wife, Mrs. Brent, who since the
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Speaker 1: affair of John Wilson's fire had dropped into the background,
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Speaker 1: and felt it indiscreet to present tales of distress at
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Speaker 1: the court, began to recover her courage. Her perfunctory visits
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Speaker 1: assumed a new character. The vicarage had, of course, called
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Speaker 1: promptly upon Miss Vanderpool after her arrival. Mrs. Brent admired
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Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool hugely. You seem so unlike an American, she
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Speaker 1: said once in her most tactful, ingratiating manner, which was
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Speaker 1: very ingratiating indeed. Do I? What is one like when
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Speaker 1: one is like an American? I am one, you know.
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Speaker 1: I can scarcely believe it, with sweet ardour. Pray try,
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Speaker 1: said Betty, with simple brevity, and Mrs. Brent felt that
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Speaker 1: perhaps Miss Vanderpool was not really very easy to get
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Speaker 1: on with. She meant to imply that I did not
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Speaker 1: speak through my nose and talk too much and too
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Speaker 1: vivaciously in a shrill voice, Betty said afterwards, in talking
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Speaker 1: the interview over with Rosie. I like to convince myself
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Speaker 1: that is not one's sole national characteristic. Also, it was
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Speaker 1: not exactly Mrs. Brent's place to kindly encourage me with
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Speaker 1: the information that I do not seem to belong to
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Speaker 1: my own country. Lady Anstruthers laughed, and Betty looked at
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Speaker 1: her inquiringly. You said that just like, just like an Englishwoman.'
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Speaker 1: Did I?' said Betty. Mrs. Brent had come to talk
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Speaker 1: to her because she did not wish to trouble dear
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Speaker 1: Lady Anstruthers. Lady Anstruthers already looked much stronger, but she
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Speaker 1: had been delicate so long that one hesitated to distress
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Speaker 1: her with village matters. She did not add that she
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Speaker 1: realised that she was coming to headquarters. The vicar and
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Speaker 1: herself were much disturbed about a rather tiresome old woman,
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Speaker 1: old Mrs. Weldon, who lived in a tiny cottage in
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Speaker 1: the village. She was eighty-three years old, and a respectable
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Speaker 1: old person, a widow who had reared ten children. The
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Speaker 1: children had all grown up and scattered, and old Mrs.
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Speaker 1: Weldon had nothing whatever to live on. No one knew
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Speaker 1: how she lived, and really she would be better off
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Speaker 1: in the workhouse. She could be sent to Brexley Union
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Speaker 1: and comfortably taken care of, but she had that singular
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Speaker 1: obstinate dislike of going which it was so difficult to manage.
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Speaker 1: She had asked for a shilling a week from the parish,
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Speaker 1: but that could not be allowed her, as it would
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Speaker 1: merely uphold her in the obstinate intention of remaining in
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Speaker 1: her cottage and taking care of herself, which she could
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Speaker 1: not do. Betty gathered that the shilling a week would
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Speaker 1: be a drain on the parish funds, and would so
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Speaker 1: raise the old creature to affluence that she would feel
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Speaker 1: she could defy fate, and the contumacity of old men
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Speaker 1: and women should not be strengthened by the reckless bestowal
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Speaker 1: of shillings. Knowing that Miss Vanderpool had already gained influence
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Speaker 1: among the village people, Mrs. Brent said, she had come
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Speaker 1: to ask her if she would see old Mrs. Weldon
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Speaker 1: and argue with her in such a manner as would
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Speaker 1: convince her that the workhouse was the best place for
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Speaker 1: her it was of course so much pleasanter if these
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Speaker 1: old people could be induced to go to brexley willingly
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Speaker 1: shall i be undermining the whole political economy of stornham
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Speaker 1: if i take care of her myself suggested betty you-you
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Speaker 1: will lead others to expect the same thing will be
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Speaker 1: done for them When one has resources to draw on,
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Speaker 1: Miss Vanderpool commented, in the case of a woman who
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Speaker 1: has lived eighty-three years and brought up ten children until
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Speaker 1: they were old enough and strong enough to leave her
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Speaker 1: to take care of herself, it is difficult for the
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Speaker 1: weak of mind to apply the laws of political economics.
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Speaker 1: I will go and see old Mrs. Weldon. If the
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Speaker 1: Vanderpools would provide for all the obstinate old women and
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Speaker 1: men in the parish, the political economics of Stornham would
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Speaker 1: proffer no marked objections. A good many Americans, Mrs. Brent reflected,
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Speaker 1: seemed to have these odd, lavish ways, as witnessed Lady
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Speaker 1: Anstruthers herself on her first introduction to village life. Miss
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Speaker 1: Vanderpool was evidently a much stronger character and extremely clever,
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Speaker 1: and somehow the stream of the American fortune was at
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Speaker 1: last being directed towards Stornham, which of course should have
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Speaker 1: happened long ago. A good deal was being done, and
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Speaker 1: the whole situation looked more promising. So was the matter
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Speaker 1: discussed and summed up the same evening after dinner at
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Speaker 1: the vicarage. Betty found old Mrs. Weldon's cottage. It was
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Speaker 1: in a green lane turning from the village street, which
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Speaker 1: was almost a green lane itself. A tiny hedged-in front
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Speaker 1: garden was before the cottage door. A crazy-looking wicket-gate was
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Speaker 1: in the hedge, and a fuchsia bush and a few
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Speaker 1: old roses were in the few yards of garden. There
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Speaker 1: were actually two or three geraniums in the window, showing
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Speaker 1: cheerful scarlet between the short white dimity curtains. A house
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Speaker 1: this size and of this poverty in an American village,
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Speaker 1: was Betty's thought, would be a bare and straggling hideousness
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Speaker 1: with old tomato cans in the front yard. Here is
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Speaker 1: one of the things we have to learn from them.
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Speaker 1: When she knocked at the door an old woman opened it.
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Speaker 1: She was a well-preserved and markedly respectable old person in
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Speaker 1: a decent print frock and a cap. At the sight
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Speaker 1: of her visitor she beamed and made a suggestion of courtesy.'
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Speaker 1: How do you do, Mrs. Weldon?' said Betty.' I am
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Speaker 1: Lady Anstruther's sister, Miss Vanderpool. I thought I would like
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Speaker 1: to come and see you.'' Thank you, Miss. I am
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Speaker 1: obliged for the kindness, Miss. Won't you come in and
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Speaker 1: have a chair?' There were no signs of decrepitude about her,
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Speaker 1: and she had a cheery old eye. The tiny front
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Speaker 1: room was neat, though there was scarcely space enough in
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Speaker 1: it to contain the table covered with its blue-checked cotton cloth,
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Speaker 1: the narrow sofa, and two or three chairs. There were
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Speaker 1: a few small coloured prints and a framed photograph or
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Speaker 1: so on the walls, and on the table was a
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Speaker 1: Bible and a brown earthenware teapot and a plate. Tom
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Speaker 1: Wood's wife, that's neighbour next door to me, she said,
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Speaker 1: gave me a pinch of tea, and I've just been
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Speaker 1: having it. Tom Wood's miss has just been took on
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Speaker 1: by Mr. Kedges as one of the new undergardeners at
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Speaker 1: the court. Betty found her delightful. She made no complaints
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Speaker 1: and was evidently pleased with the excitement of receiving a visitor.
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Speaker 1: The truth was that, in common with every other old woman,
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Speaker 1: she had secretly aspired to being visited some day by
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Speaker 1: the amazing young lady from Merica. Betty had yet to
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Speaker 1: learn of the heart-burnings which may be occasioned by an
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Speaker 1: unconscious favouritism. She was not aware that when she dropped
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Speaker 1: in to talk to old Dobie, his neighbour, old Medworth,
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Speaker 1: peered from behind his curtains with the dew of envy
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Speaker 1: in his roomy eyes.' Seems,' he mumbled,' as if they
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Speaker 1: wasn't nobody now in Stornham village, but George Dobie seems not.'
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Speaker 1: They were very fierce in their jealousy of attention, and
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Speaker 1: one must beware of arousing evil passions in the octogenarian breast.
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Speaker 1: The young lady from Merica had not so far had
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Speaker 1: time to make a call at any cottage in old Mrs.
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Speaker 1: Weldon's lane, and she had knocked just at old Mrs.
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Speaker 1: Weldon's door. This was enough to put in good spirits
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Speaker 1: even a less cheery old person. At first Betty wondered
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Speaker 1: how she could with delicacy ask personal questions. A few
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Speaker 1: minutes' conversation, however, showed her that the personal affairs of
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Speaker 1: Sir Nigel's tenants were also the affairs of not only himself,
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Speaker 1: but of such of his relatives as attended to their
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Speaker 1: natural duty. Her presence in the cottage, and her interest
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Speaker 1: in Mrs. Weldon's ready flow of simple talk, were desirable
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Speaker 1: and proper compliments to the old woman herself. She was
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Speaker 1: a decent and self-respecting old person, but in her mind
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Speaker 1: there was no faintest glimmer of resentment of questions concerning
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Speaker 1: rent and food, and the needs of her simple, hard-driven existence.
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Speaker 1: She had answered such questions on many occasions when they
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Speaker 1: had not been asked in the manner in which her
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Speaker 1: ladyship's sister asked them. Mrs. Brent had scolded her, and
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Speaker 1: poked about her cottage, going into the tiny wash-house, and
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Speaker 1: up into her infinitesimal bedroom under the slanting roof, to
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Speaker 1: see that they were kept clean. Miss Vanderpool showed no
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Speaker 1: disposition to poke. She sat and listened, and made an
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Speaker 1: inquiry here and there, in a nice voice and with
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Speaker 1: a smile in her eyes. There was some pleasure in
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Speaker 1: relating the whole history of your eighty-three years to a
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Speaker 1: young lady who listened as if she wanted to hear it.
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Speaker 1: So old Mrs. Weldon prattled on, about her good days
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Speaker 1: when she was young and was kitchen-maid at the parsonage
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Speaker 1: in a village twenty miles away, about her marriage with
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Speaker 1: a young farm-labourer, about his steady habits and the comfort
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Speaker 1: they had together, in spite of the yearly arrival of
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Speaker 1: a new baby and the crowding of the bit of
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Speaker 1: a cottage his master allowed them. ten of them, and
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Speaker 1: it had been up before sunrise and a good bit
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Speaker 1: of hard work to keep them all fed and clean.
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Speaker 1: But she had not minded that until Jack died quite
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Speaker 1: sudden after a sunstroke. It was odd how much colour
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Speaker 1: her rustic phraseology held. She made Betty see it all— the
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Speaker 1: apparent natural inevitableness of their being turned out of the
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Speaker 1: cottage because another man must have it— the years during which
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Speaker 1: she worked her way while the ten were growing up,
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Speaker 1: having measles and chicken-pox and scarlet fever— and one dying here
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Speaker 1: and there, dropping out quite in the natural order of things,
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Speaker 1: and being buried by the parish in corners of the
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Speaker 1: ancient churchyard. Three of them was took by scarlet fever,
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Speaker 1: one of them of a decline, and then one or
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Speaker 1: two by other illnesses. Only four reached man and womanhood.
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Speaker 1: One had gone to Australia, but he never was one
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Speaker 1: to write, and after a year or two Betty gathered
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Speaker 1: he had seemed to melt away into the great distance.
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Speaker 1: Two girls had married, and Mrs. Weldon could not say
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Speaker 1: they had been comfortable. They could barely feed themselves and
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Speaker 1: their swarms of children. The other son had never been
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Speaker 1: steady like his father. He had at last gone to London,
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Speaker 1: and London had swallowed him up. Betty was struck by
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Speaker 1: the fact that she did not seem to feel that
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Speaker 1: the mother of ten might have expected some return for
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Speaker 1: her labours at eighty-three. Her unresentful acceptance of things was
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Speaker 1: at once significant and moving. Betty found her amazing. What
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Speaker 1: she lived on it was not easy to understand. She
15:59
Speaker 1: seemed rather like a cheerful old bird, getting up each
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Speaker 1: unprovided foremorning, and picking up her sustenance where she found it.'
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Speaker 1: There' s more in the saying the Lord provides than a
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Speaker 1: good many things,' she said, with a small chuckle, marked
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Speaker 1: more by a genial and comfortable sense of humour than
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Speaker 1: by an air of meritoriously quoting the vicar.' He do!'
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Speaker 1: She paid one and threepence a week in rent for
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Speaker 1: her cottage, and this was the most serious strain upon
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Speaker 1: her resources. She apparently could live without food or fire,
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Speaker 1: but the rent must be paid. And I do get
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Speaker 1: a bit behind sometimes, she confessed apologetically, and then it's
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Speaker 1: a trouble to get straight. Her cottage was one of
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Speaker 1: a short row, and she did odd jobs for the
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Speaker 1: women who were her neighbours. There were always babies to
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Speaker 1: be looked after, and bits of elk needed, sometimes there
16:47
Speaker 1: were movings from one cottage to another, and confinements were
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Speaker 1: plainly at once exhilarating and enriching. Her temperamental good cheer,
16:54
Speaker 1: combined with her experience, made her a desirable companion and assistant.
16:59
Speaker 1: She was engagingly frank.' When they're new to it and
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Speaker 1: a bit frightened, I just give them a cup of
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Speaker 1: tea and joke with them and cheer them up,' she said.'
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Speaker 1: I says to Charles, Jenkins' wife as lives next door,'
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Speaker 1: Come now, me girl, it's been going on since Adam
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Speaker 1: and Eve, and there's a good many of us left,
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Speaker 1: isn't there?' And a fine boy it was, too, miss,
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Speaker 1: and her up and about before her month.' she was
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Speaker 1: paid in sixpences and spare shillings and in cups of
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Speaker 1: tea or a fresh-baked loaf or screws of sugar or
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Speaker 1: even in a garment not yet worn beyond repair and
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Speaker 1: she was free to run in and out and grow
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Speaker 1: a flower or so in her garden and talk with
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Speaker 1: a neighbour over the low dividing hedge they want me
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Speaker 1: to go into the house reaching the dangerous subject at
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Speaker 1: last they say i'll be took care of and looked
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Speaker 1: after but i don't want to do it miss i
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Speaker 1: want to keep me bit of a gnome if i
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Speaker 1: can and be free to come and go I'm eighty-three
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Speaker 1: and it won't be long. I had a shill in
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Speaker 1: a week from the parish, but they stopped it because
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Speaker 1: they said I ought to go into the house. She
17:59
Speaker 1: looked at Betty with a momentarily anxious smile. Perhaps you
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Speaker 1: don't quite understand, miss, she said. It'll seem like nothing
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Speaker 1: to you, a place like this. It doesn't, Betty answered,
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Speaker 1: smiling bravely back into the old eyes, though she felt
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Speaker 1: a slight fullness of the throat. I understand all about it.
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Speaker 1: It is possible that old Mrs. Weldon was a little
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Speaker 1: taken aback by an attitude which, satisfactory to her own
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Speaker 1: prejudice as though it might be, was, taken in connection
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Speaker 1: with fixed customs, a trifle unnatural.' You don't mind me
18:32
Speaker 1: not wanting to go?' she said.' No,' was the answer.'
18:36
Speaker 1: Not at all.' Betty began to ask questions. How much tea, sugar, soap, candles, bread, butter, bacon,
18:43
Speaker 1: could Mrs. Weldon use in a week?' It was not
18:46
Speaker 1: very easy to find out the exact quantities, as Mrs.
18:49
Speaker 1: Weldon's estimates of such things had been based, during her
18:52
Speaker 1: entire existence, upon calculation as to how little, not how much,
18:57
Speaker 1: she could use. When Betty suggested a pound of tea,
19:00
Speaker 1: a half-pound, the old woman smiled at the innocent ignorance
19:04
Speaker 1: the suggestion of such reckless profusion implied.' Oh, no, bless you, miss, no!
19:09
Speaker 1: I could never do away with it. A quarter, miss,
19:12
Speaker 1: that'd be plenty, a quarter.' mrs weldon's idea of the
19:16
Speaker 1: best was that at two shillings a pound quarter of
19:19
Speaker 1: a pound would cost sixpence twelve cents thought betty a
19:23
Speaker 1: pound of sugar would be twopence mrs weldon would use
19:26
Speaker 1: half a pound the riotous extravagance of two cents half
19:30
Speaker 1: a pound of butter good tub butter miss would be
19:33
Speaker 1: tenpence three farthings a pound soap candles bacon bread coal
19:38
Speaker 1: wood in the quantities required by mrs weldon might with
19:41
Speaker 1: the addition of rent amount to the dizzying height of
19:44
Speaker 1: eight or ten shillings with careful extravagance betty mentally summed
19:48
Speaker 1: up i might spend almost two dollars a week in
19:51
Speaker 1: surrounding her with a riot of luxury. She made a
19:55
Speaker 1: list of the things, and added some extras as an
19:57
Speaker 1: idea of her own. Life had not afforded her this
20:00
Speaker 1: kind of thing before, she realized. She felt for the
20:03
Speaker 1: first time the joy of reckless extravagance, and thrilled with
20:06
Speaker 1: the excitement of it.' You need not think of Brexley
20:10
Speaker 1: Union any more,' she said, when she, having risen to go,
20:13
Speaker 1: stood at the cottage door with old Mrs. Weldon.' The
20:16
Speaker 1: things I have written down here shall be sent to
20:18
Speaker 1: you every Saturday night. I will pay your rent.'' Miss, Miss,'
20:22
Speaker 1: Miss Weldon looked affrighted.' It' s too much, Miss, and calls
20:26
Speaker 1: eighteen pence an hundred.'' Never mind,' said her ladyship's sister,
20:31
Speaker 1: and the old woman, looking up into her eyes, found
20:34
Speaker 1: there the colour Mount Dunstan had thought of as being
20:36
Speaker 1: that of bluebells under water.' I think we can manage it, Mrs. Weldon.
20:41
Speaker 1: Keep yourself as warm as you like, and sometime I
20:44
Speaker 1: will come and have a cup of tea with you
20:46
Speaker 1: and see if the tea is good.'' Oh, deary me!'
20:50
Speaker 1: said Mrs. Weldon.' I can't think what to say, miss.
20:53
Speaker 1: It lifts everything, everything. It's not to be believed it's
20:57
Speaker 1: like being left a fortune.' When the wicket-gate swung to
21:01
Speaker 1: and the young lady went up the lane, the old
21:03
Speaker 1: woman stood staring after her. And here was a piece
21:07
Speaker 1: of news to run into Charlie Jenkins' cottage and tell,
21:10
Speaker 1: and what woman or man in the row would quite
21:13
Speaker 1: believe it? End of Chapter XXIV