But this was all she got ... excepting, indeed, that she felt some consolation for her disappointment in having to tell her mother, on her return, that if she had children, (and of course she should, as everybody else had,) they were to have their share of all the old maid might leave.
"Ugly old hypocrite!... it won't be much, take my word for it," replied Mrs. Compton.... "She likes all the beggars in the parish a vast deal better than she does her own flesh and blood.... Don't talk any more of her, Martha.... I should be glad if I was never to hear her name mentioned again!"
CHAPTER V.
A VISIT FROM THE HEIRESS.—MISS AGNES WILLOUGHBY IS SENT TO SCHOOL.
In about a month after this visit, and less than a week before the day fixed upon for the happiness of Mr. Barnaby, Miss Betsy Compton very unexpectedly made a visit to her brother. She found him a good deal altered, but she found him also with his toddy and pipe, both objects of such hatred and disgust to her anchoritish spirit, that all the kind feelings which might have been awakened by his failing health, were chased by looking upon what caused it.
To see her feeble-minded brother was not, however, the only or the principal object of her visit to Silverton; and she permitted not many minutes to be wasted in mutual questionings that meant very little, before she let him understand what was.
"I am come to speak to you, brother," she said, "about little Agnes. I should like to know in what manner you intend to educate her?"
"Mrs. Compton manages all that, sister Betsy," replied the invalid; "and, at any rate, I am sure I have no money to teach her anything."
"But it is a sin, brother, to let the child run wild about the garden as you would a magpie.... Do you know that she can't read?"