"I remember him," said Miss Cox; "he used to take an hour to deliver the bread. Ah, Ruth, you should not have married such a boy."
"Shouldn't I? Then, Miss Cox, you and I don't agree there. If I am a bit older, Frank is the best husband that ever lived.—This way, ma'am."
Ruth opened a wooden gate and went up a narrow path to the door of a small house, built of old-fashioned brick, with a porch at the side, and a trellis covered with clematis.
"Quite like country, isn't it, ma'am?—Mother," Ruth called. And then from the back of the house Mrs. Pryor emerged, a thin, pale, respectable-looking woman, but with a sad expression on her face. "Here's a lady, mother, come to look at your apartments, for a family—Dr. Wilton's brother, you know, mother, where I lived when I first saw Frank."
"Ah! indeed; will you please to look round, ma'am? It is a tidy place; I do all I can to keep it neat and clean; and there's some good furniture in it, left me by my dear blessed mistress." And Mrs. Pryor raised her apron to her eyes, and spoke in a low voice, like one on the brink of tears.
"Well then, mother, when ladies come to be in their eighty-sevens, one can't wish or expect them to live. It is only natural; we can't all live to be a hundred."
"I don't like such flighty talk, Ruth," said Mrs. Pryor reprovingly. "It hurts me.—This way, ma'am."
Aunt Betha followed Mrs. Pryor into a sitting-room on the ground floor, square and very neat,—the table in the middle of the room, a large mahogany chiffonier, with a glass of wax flowers on it, and two old china cups. Miss Cox went to the square window and looked out. The ground sloped away from the strip of garden, and the hamlet of Elm Fields, consisting of the cottages and small houses where Frank now delivered his own bread, was seen from it. There was nothing offensive to the eye, and beyond was a line of hills. Harstone lay to the right. Another room of the same proportions, and four bed-rooms, all very neat, and in one, the pride of Mrs. Pryor's heart, a large four-post bed with carved posts and heavy curtains, the very chief of the dear mistress's gifts and legacies.
Aunt Betha felt it would do—that it must do; and there was a little room for the servant which Mrs. Pryor would throw in, and all for the prescribed two pounds a week.
"I will tell Dr. Wilton about it, and you shall hear this evening, or to-morrow morning at latest, and you will do your best to make them comfortable. They have had great sorrows. One thing I forgot to consider,—how far are we from the college?"