“Deed I do, though, Jenny. There’s some life in the like of that—seeing to yourself and such like. And what are the pleasures of towns and streets and hotels and servants, and such botherations to those of a sweet old farm that is all your own somewhere? And, to think—to think, Jenny, getting up in the summer morning before the sun itself, when the light is that cool dead gray, and the last stars are dying off, and the first birds are calling to their mates that are still asleep, and then going round to the cowhouse in the clear, crisp, ringing air, and startling the rabbits and the hares that are hopping about in the haggard—O! it’s delightful!”
“Really now!” said Jenny.
“And then the men coming down stairs, half awake and yawning, in their shirt sleeves and their stocking feet, and pushing on their boots and clattering out to the stable, and shouting to the horses that are stamping in their stalls; and then you yoursef busy as Thop’s wife laying the cups and saucers, and sending the boys to the well for water, and filling the big crock to the brim, and hanging the kettle on the hook, and setting somebody to blow the fire while the gorse flames and crackles, and bustling here and bustling there, and stirring yoursef terr’ble, and getting breakfast over, and starting everybody away to his work in the fields—aw, there’s nothing like it in the world.”
“And do you think that, Nelly?” said Jenny.
“Why, yes; why shouldn’t I?” said Nelly.
“Well, well,” said Jenny. “‘There’s nowt so queer as folk,’ as they say in Manchester.
“What do you mean, Jenny Crow?”
“I fancy I see you,” said Jenny, “bowling off to Balla—what d’ye call it?—and doing all that by yourself.”
“Oh!” said Nelly.
Mrs. Quiggin had begun to speak in a voice that was something between a shrill laugh and a cry, and she ended with a smothered gurgle, such as comes from the throat of a pea-hen. After breakfast Peggy Quine came chirping around with a hundred inquiries about the packing of luggage which was then proceeding, with a view to the carriage that had been ordered for eleven o’clock. Mrs. Quiggin betrayed only the most languid interest in these hurrying operations, and settled herself with her needlework in a chair near to Jenny Crow. Jenny watched her, and thought, “Now, wouldn’t she jump at a good excuse for not going at all?”