Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroom reading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon.
"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek had flushed.
Polly showed embarrassment.
"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o' you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo."
"That isn't what I wanted," said Laura.
She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Polly watched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of the lip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house.
Laura languidly consented.
So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with its milk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; and into the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oak four-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quilt of goosedown—Polly's handiwork—that lay on Hubert's bed; at the clusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the old uneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the family store of meal and oatcake for the year.
"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silver saxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill," said Polly; "theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we wor small. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants his white bread yanst a day whativver happens."
The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and no luxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a very little money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed to them sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. "Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o' year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt he can help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peäts i' ter Whinthorpe when t' peät-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t' neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stir hissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'—that's what he'll say. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. It makes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful he woan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if it weren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left."