“The same as yesterday. Have you seen anything of Miss Emily? She went back to London the day after you left us.”
“I haven’t been in London. I’m thankful to say my lodgings are let to a good tenant.”
“Then where have you lived, while you were waiting to come here?”
“I had only one place to go to, miss; I went to the village where I was born. A friend found a corner for me. Ah, dear heart, it’s a pleasant place, there!”
“A place like this?”
“Lord help you! As little like this as chalk is to cheese. A fine big moor, miss, in Cumberland, without a tree in sight—look where you may. Something like a wind, I can tell you, when it takes to blowing there.”
“Have you never been in this part of the country?”
“Not I! When I left the North, my new mistress took me to Canada. Talk about air! If there was anything in it, the people in that air ought to live to be a hundred. I liked Canada.”
“And who was your next mistress?”
Thus far, Mrs. Ellmother had been ready enough to talk. Had she failed to hear what Francine had just said to her? or had she some reason for feeling reluctant to answer? In any case, a spirit of taciturnity took sudden possession of her—she was silent.