"She's just the same as she has been these last twenty years. Shall we look in on the old creature?"
"With all my heart. I hope, poor soul! that she has not been overlooked on this festive occasion."
"Trust Mrs. Aubrey for that! I'll answer for it, we shall find old Bess as happy, in her way, as she can be."
This was a stone blind old woman, who had been bedridden for the last twenty years. She had certainly passed her hundredth year—some said two or three years before—and had lived in her present little cottage for nearly half a century, having grown out of the recollection of almost all the inhabitants of the village. She had long been a pensioner of Mrs. Aubrey's, by whom alone, indeed, she was supported. Her great age, her singular appearance, and a certain rambling way of talking that she had, had long earned her the reputation, in the village, of being able to say strange things; and one or two of the old gossips knew of things coming to pass according to what—poor old soul—she had predicted!
Dr. Tatham gently pushed open the door. The cottage consisted, in fact, of but one room, and that a very small one, and lit by only one little window. The floor was clean, and evidently just fresh sanded. On a wooden stool, opposite a fireplace, on which a small saucepan was placed, sat a girl about twelve years old, (a daughter of the woman who lived nearest,) crumbling some bread into a basin, with some broth in it. On a narrow bed against the wall, opposite the window, was to be seen the somewhat remarkable figure of the solitary old tenant of the cottage. She was sitting up, resting against the pillow, which was placed on end against the wall. She was evidently a very tall woman; and her long, brown, wrinkled, shrivelled face, with prominent cheekbones and bushy white eyebrows, betokened the possession, in earlier days, of a most masculine expression of features. Her hair, white as snow, was gathered back from her forehead, under a spreading plain white cap; and her sightless eyes, wide open, stared forward with a startling and somewhat sinister expression. She was wrapped round in a clean white bedgown; and her long thin arms lay straight before her on the outside of the bedclothes. Her lips were moving, as if she were talking to herself.
"She's a strange-looking object, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Aubrey, as he and Dr. Tatham stood watching her for a few moments in silence.
"Dame! dame!" said the doctor, loudly, approaching her bedside, "how are you to-day? It's Christmas-day—I wish you a merry Christmas."
"Ay, ay—merry, merry!" echoed the old woman, with a half-groan. "More the merrier! I've seen a hundred and nine of them!"
"You seem comfortable enough, dame," said Mr. Aubrey, kindly. "I hope you are?"
"They won't give me my broth—my broth," said she, peevishly.