‘I suppose you have known—all kinds of things?’ said Mab, looking with curiosity at her companion, whose eyes were full of knowledge too strange for the little girl. Mab had forgotten all about her object in coming, in the interest with which she looked at this curious human creature, who was like an undiscovered country, a world unrealised to her young imagination. She felt like an explorer coasting about in a little skiff to discover unknown headlands and bays of some quaint island far at sea.
‘Yes, I have known a good many kinds of things,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘things that would make the hair of the ladies in Watcham stand on end. I have been in a great many places—and, I am sorry to say, in a great many wrong places. I am not, to tell the truth, a sort of a woman for you to associate with, my dear young lady. You ought to draw your petticoats close round you in case they should touch anything of mine.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Mat, greatly startled.
‘No; I did not suppose you would. You would be a capital confessor, for that reason; for I might pour all my sins into an innocent little ear like yours, and you would never understand them. Will you really refuse my ragout? It is very good, I assure you. Then have one of those pommes au sucre; I rather pride myself on them.’
‘They are like apples of gold,’ said Mab, who was so young that a sweetmeat was a great temptation to her.
‘I wish they were in a dish of silver—for your sake; but here is a little Dresden plate, which is quite as pretty. And there is a little pot of cream. This is friendly, now, and gives me pleasure. Your cousin, Mr. Jim——’
‘Do you know Jim?’ cried Mab, looking up from her apple, which was very good, with great surprise.
‘Ah, I have known a great many people,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘your father among others, and old Lord John, who died the other day. You never saw your uncle John? Well, you had no great loss; but his money will do you just as much good as if he had been the greatest hero in the world.’
‘I do not know what you mean about my uncle John and money. Do you mean to say that you knew my father?’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘they have not told you—and I don’t doubt that was wise enough until all is settled. It was the right thing not to do.’