Mrs Hogg glanced up at Nesta with small favour in her face.
“Please,” said Nesta, coming close to her, “I want to get something to do. I am a young lady, you know.”
“Maybe you be; but you took all the clothes off me last night, and that ain’t young-ladyish to my way o’ thinking.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nesta, who thought it best to propitiate Mrs Hogg, “Please,” she continued, in a coaxing tone, “do you happen to know a blind lady in the village?”
“A blind lady—what do you mean?”
“Isn’t there one?” cried Nesta, in a tone of distress. “Why, you talk as though you wanted some one to be blind. What do you mean?”
“Well, I do; I want to read to her.”
“Sakes alive! what a queer child.”
“But is there one?”
“There ain’t as far as I’m aware. There’s old Mrs Johnston, but she ain’t blind; she has the very sharpest of eyes that were ever set into anybody’s head. She’s crool, too, crool, the way she snaps you up. She used to have a lady to read to her, but that lady has gone to Ameriky to be married. She went a week ago, and they say Mrs Johnston almost cried, crool as she used to be to Miss Palliser. Now, if you really wanted to—”