“Oh, Lor’, you wor allus one for makin’ a poor mouth, Patton!” said Mrs. Jellison.  She had been sitting with her arms folded across her chest, part absent, part amused, part malicious.  “The young lady speaks beautiful, just like a book she do.  An’ she’s likely to know a deal better nor poor persons like you and me.  All I kin say is,—­if there’s goin’ to be dividin’ up of other folks’ property, when I’m gone, I hope George Westall won’t get nothink ov it!  He’s bad enough as ’tis.  Isabella ‘ud have a fine time if ee took to drivin’ ov his carriage.”

The others laughed out, Marcella at their head, and Mrs. Jellison subsided, the corners of her mouth still twitching, and her eyes shining as though a host of entertaining notions were trooping through her—­which, however, she preferred to amuse herself with rather than the public.  Marcella looked at Patton thoughtfully.

“You’ve been all your life in this village, haven’t you, Mr. Patton?” she asked him.

“Born top o’ Witchett’s Hill, miss.  An’ my wife here, she wor born just a house or two further along, an’ we two bin married sixty-one year come next March.”

He had resumed his usual almshouse tone, civil and a little plaintive.  His wife behind him smiled gently at being spoken of.  She had a long fair face, and white hair surmounted by a battered black bonnet, a mouth set rather on one side, and a more observant and refined air than most of her neighbours.  She sighed while she talked, and spoke in a delicate quaver.

“D’ye know, miss,” said Mrs. Jellison, pointing to Mrs. Patton, “as she kep’ school when she was young?”

“Did you, Mrs. Patton?” asked Marcella in her tone of sympathetic interest.  “The school wasn’t very big then, I suppose?”

“About forty, miss,” said Mrs. Patton, with a sigh.  “There was eighteen the Rector paid for, and eighteen Mr. Boyce paid for, and the rest paid for themselves.”

Her voice dropped gently, and she sighed again like one weighted with an eternal fatigue.

“And what did you teach them?”

“Well, I taught them the plaitin’, miss, and as much readin’ and writin’ as I knew myself.  It wasn’t as high as it is now, you see, miss,” and a delicate flush dawned on the old cheek as Mrs. Patton threw a glance round her companions as though appealing to them not to tell stories of her.

But Mrs. Jellison was implacable.  “It wor she taught me,” she said, nodding at Marcella and pointing sideways to Mrs. Patton.  “She had a queer way wi’ the hard words, I can tell yer, miss.  When she couldn’t tell ’em herself she’d never own up to it.  ’Say Jerusalem, my dear, and pass on.’  That’s what she’d say, she would, sure’s as you’re alive!  I’ve heard her do it times.  An’ when Isabella an’ me used to read the Bible, nights, I’d allus rayther do ’t than be beholden to me own darter.  It gets yer through, anyway.”

“Well, it wor a good word,” said Mrs. Patton, blushing and mildly defending herself.  “It didn’t do none of yer any harm.”