“Good sermons, indeed, Ma’am, and a good parson, kind to the poor; and very comfortable it is, sure, if they did not raise the stove so high. I think ’twas warmer before they raised it.”
“For a hundred and fifty years the Gilroyd people have been all buried there,” continued Aunt Dinah, talking more to the old church than to Winnie.
“Well, I should not wonder,” said Winnie, “there is a deal o’ them lies there. My grandmother minded the time old Lady Maubray was buried yonder, with that fine marble thing outside o’ the church. The rails is gone very rusty now, and that coat of arms, and the writing, it’s wearing out—it is worn, the rain or something; and indeed I sometimes do think where is the good of grandeur; when we die it’s all equal, the time being so short as it is. Master Willie asked me to show it him last Sunday three weeks coming out o’ church, and even his young eyes⸺”
“Don’t name him, don’t mention him,” said Aunt Dinah suddenly in a tone of cold decision.
Winnie’s guileless light blue eyes looked up in helpless wonder in her mistress’s face.
“Don’t name his name, Winnie Dobbs. He’s gone,” said she in the same severe tone.
“Gone!” repeated Winnie. “Yes, sure! but he’ll come back.”
“No, he shan’t, Winnie; he’ll darken my doors no more. Come what may, that shan’t be. Perhaps, I may assist him occasionally still, but see him, never! He has renounced me, and I wash my hands of him.” She was answering Winnie’s look of consternation. “Let him go his own way as he chooses it—I’ve done with him.”
There was a long pause here, during which ancient Winnie Dobbs stared with an imbecile incredulity at her mistress, who was looking still at the old church. Then old Winnie sighed. Then she shook her head, touching the tip of her tongue with a piteous little “tick, tick, tick,” to the back of her teeth.
And Aunt Dinah continued drearily—