d Mrs. Wingfold was shown into the drawing-room, where was Mrs. Bevis
with her knitting. A greater contrast than that of the two ladies then
seated together in the long, low, dusky room, it were not easy to
imagine. I am greatly puzzled to think what conscious good in life Mrs.
Bevis enjoyed--just as I am puzzled to understand the eagerness with
which horses, not hungry, and evidently in full enjoyment of the sun and
air and easy exercise, will yet hurry to their stable the moment their
heads are turned in the direction of them. Is it that they have no hope
in the unknown, and then alone, in all the vicissitudes of their day,
know their destination? Would but some good kind widow, of the same type
with Mrs. Bevis, without children, tell me wherefore she is unwilling to
die! She has no special friend to whom she unbosoms herself--indeed, so
far as any one knows, she has never had any thing of which to unbosom
herself. She has no pet--dog or cat or monkey or macaw, and has never
been seen to hug a child. She never reads poetry--I doubt if she knows
more than the first line of _How doth_. She reads neither novels nor
history, and looks at the newspaper as if the type were fly-spots. Yet
there she sits smiling! Why! oh! why? Probably she does not know. Never
did question, not to say doubt, cause those soft, square-ended fingers
to move one atom less measuredly in the construction of Mrs. Bevis's
muffetee, the sole knittable thing her nature seemed capable of. Never
was sock seen on her needles; the turning of the heel was too much for
her. That she had her virtues, however, was plain from the fact that her
servants staid with her years and years; and I can, beside, from
observation set down a few of them. She never asked her husband what he
would have for dinner. When he was ready to go out with her, she was
always ready too. She never gave one true reason, and kept back a
truer--possibly there was not room for two thoughts at once in her
brain. She never screwed down a dependent; never kept small tradespeople
waiting for their money; never refused a reasonable request. In fact,
she was a stuffed bag of virtues; the bag was of no great size, but
neither were the virtues insignificant. There are dozens of sorts of
people I should feel a far stronger objection to living with; but what
puzzles me is how she contrives to live with herself, never questioning
the comfort of the arrangement, or desiring that it should one day come
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