“Nay, wife,” said the nurse. “Thank Heaven, I have enough for my own and for hers to boot. And prithee wyte not on her! Maybe the troubles o' life ha' soured her own milk.”
“And her heart into the bargain,” said the remorseless Catherine.
Margaret looked her full in the face; and down went her eyes.
“I know I ought to be very grateful to you,” sobbed Margaret to the nurse: then turned her head and leaned away over the chair, not to witness the intolerable sight of another nursing her Gerard, and Gerard drawing no distinction between this new mother and her the banished one.
The nurse replied, “You are very welcome, my poor woman. And so are you, Mistress Catherine, which are my townswoman, and know it not.”
“What, are ye from Tergou? all the better, But I cannot call your face to mind.”
“Oh, you know not me: my husband and me, we are very humble folk by you. But true Eli and his wife are known of all the town; and respected, So, I am at your call, dame; and at yours, wife; and yours, my pretty poppet; night or day.”
“There's a woman of the right old sort,” said Catherine, as the door closed upon her.
“I HATE her. I HATE her. I HATE her,” said Margaret, with wonderful fervour.
Catherine only laughed at this outburst.