ng that I rather resented this tendency to
transform my office; but it was not easy to resist. She was paying for
my whole time as her father had paid for it; it was her right, within
wide limits, to say to what uses it should be put. Or--I could go. The
liberty--perhaps it is rather theoretical--of "chucking my job" remained
to me as to every free-born Englishman--who sees his way to getting
another whereby to live. Not that I wished to surrender mine; I was
interested and--to tell the truth--I grew, within our jurisdiction,
important. She approached the assumption of her power cautiously, and at
first would return almost any answer to almost any letter at my
suggestion. I did not expect this to last, but so it was for the moment.
For instance it was I, in ultimate reality, who offered that ten
thousand pounds toward the Memorial Hall. I had a great difficulty in
fixing the proper figure. If I may judge from the language employed by
the Mayor (Councillor Bindlecombe) in public, I exceeded all possible
anticipations of munificence; in private, I am told, he confessed to
having entertained a hope of fifteen thousand. I imagine that my figure
was not, on a balancing of considerations, far wide of the mark.
Cartmell thought five thousand would have served--but old Cartmell was a
screw with other people's money. I remembered "Give handsomely when you
give." So, I think, did Jenny Driver. All the same, Bindlecombe did, in
my opinion, open his mouth a bit too wide.

Miss Chatters came two days after the funeral--in the new black silk
dress: it rustled powerfully. She was tall, had pale-brown hair with a
broad parting in the middle, a very long inquiring nose, faded blue
eyes, an absolutely flat chin, and--inconceivable gentility. If we
others were settling she settled far quicker. She took the bedroom next
to Jenny Driver's; she annexed a small sitting-room for her own--next
but one to Jenny Driver's; she had a glass of the best port every day at
eleven. ("She came down to the cellar and chose the bin herself, sir,"
Loft informed me with a wry smile of grudge for his dearest
possessions.) Yet all these acts of proprietorship--for they pretty
nearly came to that--were performed with a meekness, a deprecation, a
ladylikeness (I can find no other word) that made opposition seem unkind
and criticism ungenerous. It was only "Poor Chat!" She had a habit of
talking to Jenny in a kind of baby-language, and used to refer to
herself as