This was just done when Mrs Wishing, who lived still farther up the
hill, dropped in on her way home from the village.

She was an uncertain, wavering little woman, with no will of her own,
and a heavy burden in the shape of a husband, who, during the last few
years, had taken to fits of drinking. The widow White acknowledged that
she had a good deal to bear from Dan'l, and when times were very bad,
often supplied her with food and firing from her own small store. But
she did not do so without protest, for in her opinion the fault was not
entirely on Dan'l's side. "Maybe," she said, "if he found a clean
hearth and a tidy bit o' supper waitin' at home, he'd stay there
oftener. An' if he worked reg'lar, and didn't drink his wages, you'd
want for nothin', and be able to put by with only just the two of you to
keep. But I can't see you starve."

Mrs Wishing fluttered in at the door, and, as she thought probable, was
asked to have a dish of tea. Lilac bustled round the kitchen and set
everything neatly on the table, while her mother, glancing at her now
and then, stood at the window sewing with active fingers.

"Well, you're always busy, Mrs White," said the guest plaintively as
she untied her bonnet strings. "I will say as you're a hard worker
yourself, whatever you say about other folks."

"An' I hope as when the time comes as I can't work that the Lord 'ull
see fit to take me," said Mrs White shortly.

"Dear, dear, you've got no call to say that," said Mrs Wishing, "you as
have got Lilac to look to in your old age. Now, if it was me and Dan'l,
with neither chick nor child--" She shook her head mournfully.

Mrs White gave her one sharp glance which meant "and a good thing too",
but she did not say the words aloud; there was something so helpless and
incapable about Mrs Wishing, that it was both difficult and useless to
be severe with her, for the most cutting speeches could not rouse her
from the mild despair into which she had sunk years ago. "I dessay
you're right, but _I_ dunno," was her only reply to all reproaches and
exhortations, and finding this, Mrs White had almost ceased them,
except when they were wrung from her by some unusual example of bad
management.

"An' so handy as she is," continued Mrs Wishing, her wandering gaze
caught for a moment by Lilac's active little figure, "an' that's all
your up-bringing, Mrs White, as I was saying just now to Mrs
Greenways."

Mrs White, who was now pouring