The rough colour came suddenly into Sarah's face. She tried to turn it away, with the pathetic helplessness of the blind who cannot tell what others may be reading there in spite of their will. May, however, was looking away from her into the past.
"Not but what Jim was a rare good sort," she was saying, with the tenderness of a woman towards a lover who once might have been and just was not. "Eh, and how fond he was of you, Mrs. Thornthet!" she added, turning again. "No lad could ha' thought more of his own mother than he did of you."
"I wanted nowt wi' his fondness," Sarah said in a hard tone. "And I want no mewling about him now, as I said afore!"
"Ay, you told him off terrible, poor lad, but he was that set on you he didn't mind. He used to fetch you fairings and suchlike, didn't he,--same as Geordie did? It was never his mother he fetched 'em for; 'twas always you."
"Eliza never had no need o' fairings, wi' all she had at her back!" Sarah stood up sharply and began to grope about for her mantle and gloves. "You're bringing things back just to coax me about yon brass!" she added, as May came forward to help.... "Your father's none so well, I'm sorry to hear?"
"He hasn't been himself for a while now, and he's getting worse. I doubt he's going down the hill sharp-like, poor old chap!"
"Ay, well, our time comes to us all, and we wouldn't wish for owt else. But it'll be rare an' lonely for you wi'out him, all the same."
"I'm used to being alone, though I can't say it's very grand.... You'll have to let me come and see to you and Mr. Thornthet," she added, with a cheerful laugh.
"We're over old for the likes o' you. You want friends of your own age to keep you lively-like."
"I'm not so young myself, if it comes to that," May said. "And I don't know as I ever had a real friend, barring Geordie-an'-Jim."