“I’d sooner save it,” said she. “Can I have the book, sir.”
“Ah, sure ye can,” returned the farmer, and, after rummaging a moment in the chest, he produced a small account-book with a pencil attached to it by means of a much-worn bit of string.
Becky meanwhile had been fumbling for her spectacles, and having now assumed them, she proceeded to enter the sum she had so proudly mentioned, to her banking account.
“How much does that make?” she added, peering up at Mr. Hunt through her glasses; her toothless gums parted in a smile which was already rapturous.
“Let me see,” returned he, taking the book from her hand; “last time I reckoned it up there was forty pound in it, an’ you’ve a-been here twice since—and again to-day. You’ve got in that there wold stockin’, Mrs. Melmouth, forty pound four shillin’ an’ ninepence. It do do ye credit,” he added handsomely; “ah! that it do. ’Tisn’t many a hard-workin’ body same as yourself would put by half so much. Ye’ve put in over nine pound since I took charge of it for ye.”
“An’ that’s ten year ago come Michaelmas,” said Becky, with modest pride. “But Melmouth an’ me had been savin’ for thirty year afore that.”
“An’ you yourself ’ull go on savin’ for another thirty year, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mr. Hunt, with a jovial laugh. “There ye be so strong upon your legs as ever you was, an’ never sick nor sorry, be ye?”
“Well, not to speak on, thanks be,” responded Becky. “But I could feel a deal easier-like in my mind if I could settle who it’s all to go to when I be gone. I be puzzled what to do—ah! that I be. Thicky wold stockin’ do lay upon my heart jist same as a lump o’ lead.”
“It didn’t ought to be such a trouble to ye,” said Mr. Hunt. “Divide it, Mrs. Melmouth. Divide it fair and square among your nevvies and nieces.”
“No,” cried Mrs. Melmouth, shaking her head vehemently and sucking in her breath at the same time. “No-o-o, sir, ’twouldn’t never do, that wouldn’t. It must go all in a lump. Melmouth and me settled it that way years an’ years ago. He’d save a shillin’, d’ye see, an’ I’d scrape together another to put to it, an’ so we’d go on—for a rainy day, he’d say—but no rainy day ever did come——”