Tennyson's bad and unpoetical line in which he burlesqued Wordsworth jumped into my mind: "A Mr. Wilkinson, a clerygman." That, I thought, exactly described Mr. Brook; but I felt he would be a good friend to those who were down on their luck.
I cannot dismiss Mrs. Winderby thus briefly, for she still keeps edging into my thoughts in exactly the same way as Amelia used to edge.
Mrs. Winderby wore, as Amelia describes it, a bed-gown, and her words were well chosen, for it was a bed-gown. The bed-gown was fashioned of green velvet cut in a low square at the throat. It was supposed to hang in full, graceful folds, but it didn't do any thing of the kind, for Mrs. Winderby was of rounded, uncorseted, somewhat stout proportions, so the poor bed-gown was tight and strained. Around Mrs. Winderby's throat was a string of amber beads; and her hair, which was red and towsly, was surmounted by a green, untidy, floppy, Liberty hat.
She sank on to the low wicker chair, and said—
"I have simply ached to know you ever since you came to Pine Tree Valley."
"Oh!" I returned, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.
"Of course, I know you have been here some time; but, you see, I am always so frantically busy."
"Are people ever busy here?" I asked.
"If they like to be," she pronounced; "it depends on the people. People who have resources of their own are always busy. You have resources." She pointed her parasol at me.
"Oh, have I?" I said, surprised.