“You know her, ma’am!” cried the dame with a doubting smile. “La, bless ’ee, ma’am, I put on her first things.” And Widow Blanket thought she had closed the conversation as with an iron spring.
“You are not aware, woman, who may become the master of this house,” said Mrs. Jericho, “you are not aware what you may want, and then”—
“La, ma’am! I’m sure to get what I want,” said the Dame smiling. “Sartin. I shall soon want nothin’ but a coffin; and folks must give me that for their own sakes.”
“What do you think of that?” asked Jericho. “’Pon my life! these people talk of coffins as if they’d a right, to ’em—as if they came into the world with a future property in coffins.”
“At your years,” said Monica, venturing a reflection, “you ought to be ashamed to talk in that, manner. Like an aged heathen—as if you’d no fear of death.”
“Fear, Miss! Oh dear! Oh dear! What a world would this be, special to folks like I,—if there was no death! What a cruel prison, Miss! And now, after what. I’ve seen, and what I’ve borne, what a comfort it is—like sabbath after work—what a comfort it is, to think of rest in the churchyard. Ay”—said the old woman, raising her shaking hand, and smiling us she scanned the gentlefolks about her—“Ay, what a comfort to think of that long, sweet Saturday-night in the grave.”
“She is quite a heathen,” said Hodmadod, “When I say a heathen, I mean a very strange old woman.”
CHAPTER X.
Mr. and Mrs. Jericho, arm-and-arm and in closest communion of soul, for some half-hour longer hung about the ground. The young ladies with Candituft and Hodmadod loitered where they would; too well occupied to break, by word or motion, upon the privacy of man and wife. Jericho listened very complacently to the magnificent designs of his helpmate. She had made her mind up that he should fill the world. She could never die happy if he did not fill it. Jogtrot Hall, for one country sent to begin with, was indispensable to his greatness. “I am assured, love, by Mizzlemist”—began Mrs. Jericho—