"Sit down, Donnie Don," she said, when they had entered the room. "Sit down, and tell me everything—how all the old people are, and how the old place looks—you live there now? I have nothing to tell, only I'm married, as you know—and—and I think a most good-for-nothing creature."
"Ah, no, pretty Miss Jane, there was good in you always, only a little bit hasty, and that anyone as had the patience could see; and I knowed well you'd be better o' that little folly in time."
"I'm not better, Donnie—I'm worse—I am worse, Donnie. I know I am—not better."
"Well, dear! and jewels, and riches, and coaches, and a fine gentleman adoring you—not very young, though. Well, maybe all the better. Did you never hear say, it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave?"
"Yes, Donnie, it's very well; but let us talk of Wardlock—and he's not a fine man, Donnie, who put that in your head—he's old, and ugly, and"—she was going to say stupid, but the momentary bitterness was rebuked by an accidental glimpse of the casket in which his splendid present was secured—"and tell me about Wardlock, and the people—is old Thomas Jones there still?"
"No, he's living at Glastonhowe now, with his grandson that's married—very happy; but you would not believe how old he looks, and they say can't remember nothink as he used to, but very comfortable."
"And Turpin, the gardener?"
"Old Turpin be dead, miss, two years agone; had a fit a few months before, poor old fellow, and never was strong after. Very deaf he was of late years, and a bit cross sometimes about the vegetables, they do say; but he was a good-natured fellow, and decent allays; and though he liked a mug of ale, poor fellow, now and then, he was very regular at church."
"Poor old Turpin dead! I never heard it—and old? he used to wear a kind of flaxen wig."
"Old! dearie me, that he was, miss, you would not guess how old—there's eighty-five years on the grave-stone that Lady Alice put over him, from the parish register, in Wardlock churchyard, bless ye!"