The old woman sank down on the nearest chair and covered her face with her hands. She was so old and so tired that she had no heart to face life under new conditions, even 224 should they be better than those she left. A younger woman would have snapped her fingers in Mrs. de Tracy’s face, so to speak, and wished her joy of her old rattletrap of a house, but Elizabeth Prettyman, after a lifetime of struggles, had not vitality enough for such an action. She had never dreamed of leaving the cottage, and where was she to go? Her furrowed face wore an expression of absolute terror now when she looked up.
“But where be I to live, ma’am?” she cried.
“I do not know, Elizabeth; you must arrange that with your relations,” said Mrs. de Tracy.
“I don’t ’ave but only me niece––’er as married down Exeter way.”
“Well, you should write to her then.”
“She don’t want to keep me, Nettie don’t,––she’s but a poor man’s wife, and five chillen she ’as; it’s not like as if she were me daughter, ma’am.”
“You have some small sum of money of your own every year, have you not?” Mrs. de Tracy asked.
“Ten pound a year, ma’am; the same that me ’usband left me; two ’undred pounds ’e ’ad saved and ’t is in an annuity; that’s all I ’ave––that and me plum tree.”
“The plum tree is not yours, either, Elizabeth; that belongs to the land,” said Mrs. de Tracy curtly.