Here! I'll get you
a black-currant leaf to put in the teapot. It gives it a flavour.
We had bees once against this wall; but when missus died, we
forgot to tell 'em and put 'em in mourning, and, in course, they
swarmed away without our knowing, and the next winter came a hard
frost, and they died. Now, I dare say, the water will be boiling;
and it's time for little master there to come in, for the dew is
falling. See, all the daisies is shutting themselves up."
Sally was most gracious as a hostess. She quite put on her
company manners to receive Ruth in the kitchen. They laid Leonard
to sleep on the sofa in the parlour, that they might hear him the
more easily, and then they sat quietly down to their sewing by
the bright kitchen fire. Sally was, as usual, the talker; and, as
usual, the subject was the family of whom for so many years she
had formed a part.
"Ay! things was different when I was a girl," quoth she. "Eggs
was thirty for a shilling, and butter only sixpence a pound. My
wage when I came here was but three pound, and I did on it, and
was always clean and tidy, which is more than many a lass can say
now who gets seven and eight pound a year; and tea was kept for
an afternoon drink, and pudding was eaten afore meat in them
days, and the upshot was, people paid their debts better; ay, ay!
we'n gone backwards, and we thinken we'n gone forrards."
After shaking her head a little over the degeneracy of the times,
Sally returned to a part of the subject on which she thought she
had given Ruth a wrong idea.
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