The clergyman smiled upon her sadly, nodded assent, and, laying her hand gently upon her lap, turned away.
"Her mind's a runnin' on old times, and she don't hear a word you say, sir," observed Job, in his peculiar half-whisper, slow, subdued, but very distinct. "She don't take much notice o' what's goin' on now-days, and we have to screech to her to make her understand anything. A kind old lady, sir, but past her time, and very deaf."
Mr. Royden squeezed a drop of moisture out of his eye, and coughed. Meanwhile the aged woman relapsed into the dreamy state from which she had been momentarily aroused, drawing the dingy blanket around her cold limbs, and whispering over some dim memory of the century gone by.
XV.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF A WOODEN LEG.
"You have a good trade, friend Bowen," said Father Brighthopes, drawing his chair near the shoemaker's bench.
"It does capital for me!" replied Job, cheerfully. "Since I got a bayonet through my knee at Lundy's Lane, I find I get on best in the world sittin' still."
He smiled pleasantly over this feeble attempt at humor, and arranged some waxed ends, which, for convenience, he had hung upon his wooden leg.
"Did you learn shoe-making before you went soldiering?" asked the clergyman.