"I have the key in my pocket, sir; for I thought that would be what you'd be after, sir. And by the time you come to my age, sir, you'll learn to think of your old bones, sir. I beg your pardon for making so free. For mayhap, says I to myself, he be the gentleman as be come to take Mr. Shepherd's duty for him. Be ye now, sir?"
All this was said in a slow sweet subdued tone, nearly of one pitch. You would have felt that she claimed the privilege of age with a kind of mournful gaiety, but was careful, and anxious even, not to presume upon it, and, therefore, gentle as a young girl.
"Yes," I answered. "My name is Walton I have come to take the place of my friend Mr. Shepherd; and, of course, I want to see the church."
"Well, she be a bee-utiful old church. Some things, I think, sir, grows more beautiful the older they grows. But it ain't us, sir."
"I'm not so sure of that," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, there's my little grandson in the cottage there: he'll never be so beautiful again. Them children du be the loves. But we all grows uglier as we grows older. Churches don't seem to, sir."
"I'm not so sure about all that," I said again.
"They did say, sir, that I was a pretty girl once. I'm not much to look at now."
And she smiled with such a gracious amusement, that I felt at once that if there was any vanity left in this memory of her past loveliness, it was sweet as the memory of their old fragrance left in the withered leaves of the roses.
"But it du not matter, du it, sir? Beauty is only skin-deep."