And, with a quickness which astonished the sailor, Bessy whisked off the dish from the table, flung an old shawl over the large piece of bacon from which the rashers had been cut, and stowed away a heap of damp linen which she had been washing into a cupboard.
"She's in a mighty hurry to tidy the room for the lady," thought Ned, "but it doesn't look a bit neater than before."
Just as Bessy had finished her hasty preparations, Mrs. Curtis, a small, delicate lady, very simply but neatly dressed, tapped at the door of the cottage, and entered. Bessy was all smiles and curtsies; she dusted a chair and placed it for her guest, hoped that she had not been troubled by the heat of the day, and asked after "the young masters and misses," like one who took an affectionate interest in the well-being of the family.
"I am glad to see your brother here," said Mrs. Curtis, courteously bending her head as the sailor respectfully rose at her entrance.
"Ah! Yes, poor fellow!" exclaimed Bessy. "He's my only brother living, and as long as I have a crust, he shall be welcome to share it. We must all care for one another, ma'am, as our good minister told us last Sunday in his beautiful sermon."
"It would be but fair," thought Ned, "if Bessy gave the lady a notion that I pay for this half-crust with the whole of my pension."
"It's but a poor home that my brother has come to," continued Bessy, whose voice, in addressing the clergyman's wife, had a plaintive drawling tone, quite unlike that in which she usually spoke. "I have been wanting much, ma'am, to speak a word or two to you or to Mr. Curtis."
"My husband told me that he intended to call here soon," said the lady.
"Ah! How glad I am even to see his blessed face. Ah! What I owe him," cried Bessy, heaving a long sigh, as if to express by it gratitude too deep for words. "But what I was a-going to say, ma'am, was, that I hopes as how Mr. Curtis will be good enough to put me again on the widows' list for the loaves. I've really such a hard pull to live, I don't know how we can get on without it;" and there was another long-drawn sigh.
"Ha!" thought the indignant sailor. "The gratitude was for favours to come."