“Drat you!” said Hannah, “you were a bit of a caution—you and them boys. Oh dear me! don’t I remember the darkness in the old times? And now it’s just a blaze of light—gas every where, big fires, big j’ints, poultry, game, fish. My word! and the sweets are enough to make your mouth water. And I has to superintend, and it’s ‘Mrs Joyce’ here and ‘Mrs Joyce’ there. My word! My word!”
“Do they call you Mrs Joyce?”
“Of course they do. I wouldn’t allow anything else. But there, child, I must be off. It’s a’most time for us to sit down to our dinner; nothing less, I can assure you, than veal and ham pie, and apple-dumplings afterwards.”
“But, Hannah, you never were good at apple-dumplings, you know.”
“I am now. I have everything to make them with—that’s what I have; and I had nothing afore. Oh, my word!”
“Yes, Hannah, you used to feed us very badly. Do you remember that leg of mutton?”
Hannah laughed.
“I do,” she said. “’Ot Sunday, cold Monday, cold again Tuesday, turned upside down Wednesday, hashed Thursday, bone made into soup Friday—couldn’t do more with it if I tried.”
“You certainly couldn’t.”
“Well, child, well, all I can say is this—if you go, and she puts more on me, out I go too. And if ever you want a home, I’ll give it to you. I have a bit of money put by—more than you think on. You shall have my address before you go to that school in Paris.”