"Has she not talked at all about Australia, Granny?... No, thanks! I'm sure it's a beautiful ham—but I shall do very nicely with this. One very big lump of sugar, please, and plenty of milk, or I shall lie awake." Thus Gwen, and the influence of Strides Cottage is visible in her speech.
Old Maisie was again asleep, and they had left her and gone into the front-room; as much to speak together without disturbing her as to get their own suppers. They were doing this last, however, in a grudging sort of fashion; for the pleasures of the table are no match for a heartache. Gwen found it a solace to make her own toast with a long toasting-fork, an experience which her career as an Earl's daughter had denied to her.
"Maisie has talked many times of Australia, my lady. She talks on, so I could not repeat much."
"You mean she jumps from one thing to another?"
"Yes, so I cannot always follow her. But she has told me a many things of her life there. How at first she would never see a soul at the farm from week's end to week's end, and her husband got to own all the land about."
"Do you think she is really alive to her husband's villainy? I sometimes think she forgets all about it."
"Please God she does so! 'Tis better for her she should. I would have felt happier if she could have known me, and Ruth, and never had the tale of his wickedness."
"But that was impossible, Granny. She must have known, in the end."
"That is so, I know, my lady. But when I hear her forget it all, it makes my heart glad. When she gets to telling of the old time, on the farm, her mind is off it, and I thank God that it should be so, for her sake! Friday last she was talking so happy, you could not have known her for the same."
"About the farm and the convicts? Do recollect some of the things she told you!"