“Do you take anything for it?”
“A little yarb tea at night sometimes, ma’am.”
“We will try and bring you some mixture for it,” said Mrs Carbonel. And then she spoke to Betsy Seddon, who for a wonder had no request on her tongue, and asked her who the other woman was, in the hedge with the baby.
“That’s Tirzah Todd, ma’am,” began Mrs Seddon, but Molly Hewlett thrust her aside, and went on, being always the most ready with words; “she is Reuben Todd’s wife, and I wouldn’t wish to say no harm of her, but she comes of a gipsy lot, and hasn’t never got into ways that us calls reverend, though I wouldn’t be saying no harm of a neighbour, ma’am.”
“No, you’d better not,” exclaimed a voice, for Tirzah was nearer or had better ears than Mrs Daniel Hewlett had suspected, “though I mayn’t go hypercriting about and making tales of my neighbours, as if you hadn’t got a man what ain’t to be called sober twice a week.”
“Hush! hush!” broke in Mrs Carbonel; “we don’t want to hear all this. I hope no one will tell us unkind things of our new neighbours, for we want to be friends with all of you, especially with that bright-eyed baby. How old is it?”
She made it smile by nodding to it, and Tirzah was mollified enough to say, “Four months, ma’am; but she have a tooth coming.”
“What’s her name?”
Tirzah showed her pretty white teeth in a smile. “Well, ma’am, my husband he doth want to call her Jane, arter his mother, ’cause ’tis a good short name, but I calls her Hoglah, arter my sister as died.”
“Then she hasn’t been christened?”