Mrs. Worm, who had been all this time engaged in closing her umbrella, corroborated this statement, and now, coming indoors, showed herself to be a wide-faced, comfortable-looking woman, with a wart upon her cheek, bearing a small tuft of hair in its centre.
“Have ye ever tried anything to cure yer noise, Maister Worm?” inquired Martin Cannister.
“Oh ay; bless ye, I’ve tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful man, and I have hoped He’d have found it out by this time, living so many years in a parson’s family, too, as I have, but ’a don’t seem to relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life’s a mint o’ trouble!”
“True, mournful true, William Worm. ’Tis so. The world wants looking to, or ’tis all sixes and sevens wi’ us.”
“Take your things off, Mrs. Worm,” said Mrs. Smith. “We be rather in a muddle, to tell the truth, for my son is just dropped in from Indy a day sooner than we expected, and the pig-killer is coming presently to cut up.”
Mrs. Barbara Worm, not wishing to take any mean advantage of persons in a muddle by observing them, removed her bonnet and mantle with eyes fixed upon the flowers in the plot outside the door.
“What beautiful tiger-lilies!” said Mrs. Worm.
“Yes, they be very well, but such a trouble to me on account of the children that come here. They will go eating the berries on the stem, and call ’em currants. Taste wi’ junivals is quite fancy, really.”
“And your snapdragons look as fierce as ever.”
“Well, really,” answered Mrs. Smith, entering didactically into the subject, “they are more like Christians than flowers. But they make up well enough wi’ the rest, and don’t require much tending. And the same can be said o’ these miller’s wheels. ’Tis a flower I like very much, though so simple. John says he never cares about the flowers o’ ’em, but men have no eye for anything neat. He says his favourite flower is a cauliflower. And I assure you I tremble in the springtime, for ’tis perfect murder.”