"'Better spend than hoard,' is my motto, Mrs. Brown, and I stick to it. Maybe Mr. James might show more judgment in his spendings and his givings, but your generous people are generally just a trifle thoughtless. It's their nature so to be."
At this moment another customer entered the shop. She was pale and trembling and seemed to be terribly shocked at something.
Mr. Duff was struck with her appearance, and gave her a chair to sit down on.
"I am afraid you are ill," he said. "You look as if you had seen a ghost."
"I've seen worse," replied the woman, when she had recovered herself a little. "You knew old Ann Willis?"
The baker and Mrs. Brown assented, and the former added, "Who did not know her that knew Halesford? What is amiss with her?"
"She's dead," replied the woman, solemnly.
"Dead! Why she was here only yesterday afternoon, and standing by this very counter, Mr. James Burton gave her a shilling. He said, 'You want something to make you comfortable, Ann, this bitter weather; so here's an extra sixpence for you this time.'"
"Ay, and no doubt that shilling has been the death of her. She left the 'Black Swan' sadly the worse for drink at about eight o'clock, to go home to that miserable hut of hers, where there was not a soul to expect her, or to look for her, if she did not come. You know the short cut by the field corner where you have to cross a little bridge. Ann mostly went home that way, to save a few steps: and last night, having more than she could carry, she must have missed her footing and fallen from the bridge."
"Well! She could not drown, for the beck has been frozen hard for the last ten days," said Mr. Duff.