But she also knew the futility of attempting to circumvent a woman of this type, and she hated to have her stand there and tell still more untruths, the children hovering round.
So she returned silently, and served the ham and eggs, and listened while the Archdeacon explained the difference between Plain Cree and Swampy Cree (which, he was surprised to find, she had hitherto confused in her mind, or at best regarded as one and the same language) with all the Christian grace and forbearance she could muster.
Only once did this nearly give out, and that was when, after she had apologised to their guest for such frugal fare and had briefly outlined the reason for the same, the Rector looked with his usual absent-minded benignity through his glasses at his plate, and said—
“Well, my dear, I hadn’t noticed any difference: I thought this was what we usually have for dinner on Sundays.”
Just think of it! And for the Archdeacon to go home and tell his wife! So like a man!
This much as a general survey of Mrs. Price’s characteristics. She doesn’t make an idyllic picture, I admit, nor seem likely to be in the running for a stained glass window in the Parish Room. But then villages no less than towns are made up of varied assortments of human nature—and don’t forget we are none of us perfect.
Nevertheless, making all allowances for human frailty, you don’t wonder that I wasn’t anxious for Mrs. Price to have the free run of my kitchen, and Abigail, remembering that she had left her purse on the dresser, hurried back.
I finished the letter I was writing, and then went out to see her. As I approached, I could hear her:
“‘Sally,’ he says, ‘don’t let the kids fergit me,’ and then ’e was gone. It’s this new disease they’ve got from America—the ‘germs,’ they calls it—and they do say as ’e makes a beautiful corpse, though I shouldn’t never have thought it of ’e, the Prices being none of them pertickerlelly well favoured, even if he was me own pore husband’s brother. But thur, thur, I say speak nothing but good of them what’s gone.”