“Both my cousins married heiresses? They have not done badly, it seems.”
“N-o, they have not, in one way,” said Leuesa. “But I do not think Haimet is bettered by his marriage. He seems to me to be getting very fond of money, and always to measure everything by the silver pennies it cost. That’s not the true ell-wand; or I’m mistaken.”
“You are not, Leuesa. I’d as soon be choked with a down pillow as have my soul all smothered up with gold. Well, and how do other folks get on?—Franna, and Turguia, and Chembel and Veka, and all the rest?”
“Turguia’s gone, these five years; the rest are well—at least I don’t recall any that are not.”
“Is old Benefei still at the corner?”
“Ay, he is, and Rubi and Jurnet. Regina is married to Jurnet’s wife’s nephew, Samuel, and has a lot of children—one pretty little girl, with eyes as like Countess as they can be.”
“Oh, have you any notion what is become of Countess?”
“They removed from Reading to Dorchester, I believe, and then I heard old Leo had divorced Countess, and married Deuslesalt’s daughter and heir, Drua. What became of her I don’t know.”
“By the way, did either of you know aught of the Wise Woman of Bensington? Mother Haldane, they used to call her. She’ll perhaps not be alive now, for she was an old woman eight years gone. She did me a good turn once.”
“I don’t know anything about her,” said Leuesa.