“I shall be only too happy,” answered I, “and I think I can contrive to walk as far as you can, Mrs. Coleman.” “Oh! I don't know that,” was the reply, “I am a capital walker, I assure you. I remember a young man, quite as young as you, and a good deal stouter, who could not walk nearly as far as I can; to be sure,” she added as she left the room, “he had a wooden leg, poor fellow!”
I soon received a summons to start with the ladies, whom I found awaiting my arrival on the terrace walk at the back of the house, comfortably wrapped up in shawls and furs, for, although a bright sun was shining, the day was cold and frosty.
“You must allow me to carry that for you,” said I, laying violent hands on a large basket, between which and a muff Mrs. Coleman was in vain attempting to effect an amicable arrangement.
“Oh, dear! I'm sure you'll never be able to carry it—it's so dreadfully heavy,” was the reply.
“Nous verrons,” answered I, swinging it on my forefinger, in order to demonstrate its lightness.
“Take care—you mustn't do so!” exclaimed Mrs. Coleman in a tone of extreme alarm; “you'll upset all my beautiful senna tea, and it will get amongst the slices of Christmas plum-pudding, and the flannel that I'm going to take for poor Mrs. Muddles's children to eat; do you know Mrs. Muddles, Clara, my dear?”
Miss Saville replied in the negative, and Mrs. Coleman continued:—
“Ah! poor thing! she's a very hard-working, respectable, excellent young woman; she has been married three years, and has got six children—no! let me see—it's six years, and three children—that's it—though I can never remember whether it's most pigs or children she has—four pigs, did I say?—but it doesn't much signify, for the youngest is a boy and will soon be fat enough to kill—the pig I mean, and they're all very dirty, and have never been taught to read, because she takes in washing, and has put a great deal too much starch in my night-cap this week—only her husband drinks—so I mustn't say much about it, poor thing, for we all have our failings, you know.”
