"Fine enough for the rest of you," she said, with a smile, "but I shall not have any Christmas this year."
"How's that?" cried the baker; "no Christmas, Widow Monk?"
"Not this year, baker," said she, and she poured him another cup of tea. "You see that horse-blanket?" said she, pointing to one thrown over a chair.
"Bless me, Widow Monk," cried the baker, "you're not intending to set up a horse?"
"Hardly that," she answered, with a smile, "but that's the very last horse-blanket that I can get to bind. They don't put them on horses, but they have them bound with red, and use them for door curtains. That's all the fashion now, and all the Barnbury folks who can afford them, have sent them to me to be bound with red. That one is nearly finished, and there are no more to be bound."
"But haven't the Barnbury folks any more work for you?" cried the baker; "haven't they shirts or gowns, or some other sort of needling?"
"Those things they make themselves," answered the widow; "but this binding is heavy work, and they give it to me. The blankets are coarse, you see, but they hang well in the doorway."
"Confound the people of Barnbury!" cried the baker. "Every one of them would hang well in a doorway, if I had the doing of it. And so you can't afford a Christmas, Widow Monk?"
"No," said she, setting herself to work on her horse-blanket, "not this year. When I came to Barnbury, baker, I thought I might do well, but I have not done well."
"Did not your husband leave you anything?" he asked.