“I think it would, almost.” The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke.
“And I didn’t mean to be wicked. I’m very thankful for everything—leastways, I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like.”
“Lonely! not more lonely than I am.”
“Oh, yes; you’re different. You can go everywheres. But what can a lone woman do? I’ll tell you what, doctor; I’d give it all up to have Roger back with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he’d come home o’ nights.”
“And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh, old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you’ve got.”
“I am thankful. Didn’t I tell you so before?” said she, somewhat crossly. “But it’s a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, ’cause she’s got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won’t.”
“Ah! but you shouldn’t ask her. It’s letting yourself down.”
“What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he’s gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh, deary; I’ll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then.”
“We shall all be going after him, sooner or later; that’s sure enough.”
“Eh, dear, that’s true, surely. It’s only a span long, as Parson Oriel tells us when he gets romantic in his sermons. But it’s a hard thing, doctor, when two is married, as they can’t have their span, as he calls it, out together. Well, I must only put up with it, I suppose, as others does. Now, you’re not going, doctor? You’ll stop and have a dish of tea with me. You never see such cream as Hannah has from the Alderney cow. Do’ey now, doctor.”