Jacob? He had been at Chapel Farm in
Bellamy's father's time, and always looked on Bellamy as his boy, and
used to be very free with him, notwithstanding he was the best creature
as ever lived. He took a liking to me, and I needn't say that, liking of
me, he didn't like Bellamy's sister. Well, I came down, and I went out
of doors to get a bit of fresh air--for I'm always better out of
doors--and I went up by the cart-shed, and being faint a bit, sat down on
the waggon shafts. Old Jacob, he came by; I can see him now; it was just
about Michaelmas time, a-getting dark after tea, though I hadn't had any,
and he said to me, 'Hullo, missus, what are here for? and you've been a-
cryin',' for I had my face toward the sky and was looking at it. I never
spoke. 'I know what's the matter with you,' says he; 'do you think I
don't? Now if you go on chafing of yourself, you'll worrit yourself into
your grave, that's all. Last week there was something the matter with
that there dog, and she howled night after night, and I never slept a
wink. The first morning after she'd been a-yelping I was in a temper,
and had half a mind to kill her. I felt as if she'd got a spite against
me; but it come to me as she'd got no spite against _me_, and then all my
worriting went away. I don't say as I slept much till she was better,
but I didn't _worrit_. Now Bellamy's sister don't mean nothing against
you. That's the way God-a-mighty made her.' I've never forgot what
Jacob said, and I know it made a difference, but the Lord took her not
long afterwards."

"But I don't see what that has to do with me. It isn't the same thing."

"Yes, that's just what Bellamy says. He says I always go on with
anything that comes into my head; but then it has nothing to do with
anything he is saying, and maybe that's true, for one thing seems always
to draw me on to another, and so I go round like, and I don't know myself
where I am when I've finished. A little more tea, my dear, if you
please. And yet," continued Mrs. Bellamy, when she had finished half of
her third cup, "what I meant to say really has to do with you. It's all
the same. You wouldn't hate the Terrace so much if you knew that nobody
meant to spite you, as Jacob says. Suppose your father was driven to the
Terrace and couldn't help it, and there wasn't another house for him, you
wouldn't hate it so much then. It isn't the Terrace altogether. Now,
Miss Catharine, you won't mind my spe