A Country Gentleman and His Family

develop on the home soil. As poor little Lizzie, however, had been but two years away, perhaps the blame did not entirely lie with Canada. Her mother’s beauty and her father’s gentility had given to Lizzie many advantages over her cousins. She was prettier and far more “like a lady” than the best of them; she had a slim, straight little person, without the big joints and muscles of the race, and with blue eyes which were really blue, and not whitey-gray. And instead of going out to service, as would have been natural, she had learned dressmaking, which was a fine lady sort of a trade, and put nonsense into her head, and led her into vanity. To see her in the sitting-room behind the shop, with her hair so smooth and her waist so small and collars and cuffs as nice as any young lady’s, was as gall and wormwood to the mothers of girls quite as good (they said) as Lizzie, and just as near to granny, but never cosseted and petted in that way. And what did granny expect was to become of her at the end? So long as she was sure of her ’ome, and so long as the young ladies at the Warren gave her a bit of work now and again, and Mrs. Wilberforce at the Rectory had her in to make the children’s things, all might be well enough. But the young ladies would marry, and the little Wilberforces would grow up, and granny⁠—well, granny could not expect to live forever. And what would Miss Lizzie do then? This was what the aunts would say, shaking their heads. Mrs. Bagley, when she said anything at all in her own defence, declared that poor little Lizzie had no one to look to her, neither father nor mother, and that if her own granny didn’t take her up and do for her, who should? And that, besides, she did very well with her dressmaking. But nevertheless, by time, Mrs. Bagley had her own apprehensions too.

Minnie and Chatty were fond of making expeditions into the shop, as has been said. They liked to have a talk with Lizzie, and to turn over her fashion-books, old and new, and perhaps to plan, next time they had new frocks, how the sleeves should be made. It was a pleasant “object” for their walk, a break in the monotony, and gave them something to talk about. They went in one afternoon, shortly after the events which have been described. Chatty had occasion for a strip of muslin stamped for working, to complete some of her new underclothing which she had been making. The shop had one large square window, in which a great many different kinds of wares were exhibited, from bottles full of barley sugar and acid drops to bales of striped stuff for petticoats. Bunches of candles dangled from the roof, and nets of onions, and the old lady herself was weighing an ounce of tea for one of her poor customers when the young ladies came in. “Is Lizzie at home, Mrs. Bagley?” said Minnie. “Don’t mind us⁠—we can look for what we want; and you mustn’t let your other customers wait.”

“You’re always that good, miss,” said the old woman. Her dialect could only be expressed by much multiplication of vowels, and would not be a satisfactory representation even then, so that it is not necessary to trouble the eye of the reader with its peculiarities. A certain amount of this pronunciation may be taken for granted. “If all the quality would be as considerate, it would be a fine thing for poor folks.”

“Oh, but people with any sense would always be considerate! How is your mother, Sally? Is it for her you are buying the tea? Cocoa is very nourishing; it is an excellent thing for her.”

“If you please, miss,” said Sally, who was the purchaser, “mother do dearly love a cup of tea.”

“You ought to tell her that the cocoa is far more nourishing,” said Minnie. “It would do her a great deal more good.”

“Ah, miss, but there isn’t the heart in it that there is in a cup o’ tea,” said Mrs. Bagley. “It do set a body up when so be as you’re low. Coffee and cocoa and that’s fine and warming of a morning; but when the afternoon do come, and you feels low⁠—”

“Why should you feel low more in the afternoon than in the morning, Mrs. Bagley? There’s no reason in that.”

“Ain’t there, miss? There’s a deal of ’uman nature, though. Not young ladies like you, that have everything as you want; but even my Lizzie, I find as she wants her tea badly afternoons.”

“And so do we,” said Chatty, “especially when we don’t go out. Look here, this is just the same as the last we had. Mrs. Wilberforce had such a pretty pattern yesterday⁠—a pattern that made a great deal of appearance, and yet went so quick in working. She had done a quarter of a yard in a day.”

“You’ll find it there, miss,” said the old woman. “Mrs. Wilberforce don’t get her patterns nowhere but from me. Lizzie chose it herself, last time she went to Highcombe. And they all do say as the child has real good taste, better nor many a lady. Lizzie! Why, here’s the young ladies, and you never showing. Lizzie, child! She’s terribly taken up with a⁠—with a⁠—no, I can’t call it a job⁠—with an offer she’s had.”

“An offer! Do you mean a real offer?” cried the girls together, with excitement, both in a breath.

“Oh, not a hoffer of marriage, miss, if that’s what you’re thinking of, though she’s had them too. This is just as hard to make up her mind about. Not to me,” said the old woman. “But perhaps I’ve give her too much of her own way, and now when I says, Don’t, she up and says, Why, granny? It ain’t always so easy to say