“Why, Hannah, how could I go out? I often wish I could.”
“Poor child!” said Hannah. “Well, now—oh, my word! what are all those?”
She had not noticed the parcels before. She now sprang on them and began to examine them. In spite of herself she was impressed by the goodly array of garments.
“My word!” she said, “no one can accuse her of being stingy.”
“And no one can accuse her,” I said with feeling, “of being mean in any sense of the word. She does her best for us all.”
“Well, she has her object,” said Hannah. “A-pushing of her out—a-pushing of her out. She’s a’most gone, poor thing! Killed she were, but still her spirit seems to linger; now she’s a’most gone.”
“Hannah, when you talk like that I sometimes hate you,” I said.
Hannah looked at me in astonishment.
“How queer you are, Dumps!” she said. “I don’t know that I didn’t like you twice as well in the old times, though you have plumped out like anything. You were a very plain little creature, I will say that. But there! handsome is that handsome does.”
“And did I behave so handsomely, Hannah? You were always finding fault with me then.”