as unusually large, of black velvet or silk, with
a great white frill inside it. She was troubled at times with a
mysterious complaint called "the wind," which she thus described, her
finger tracing the course it followed within her: "That fare to go round
and round, and then out ta come a-raspin' and a-roarin'." Another of her
ailments was swelled ankles. "Oh, Mr Groome!" she would say, "if yeou
could but see my poare legs, yeou'd niver forget 'em;" and then, if not
stopped, she would proceed to pull up her short gown and show them. If
my father had been out visiting more than to her seemed wise, she would,
when he told her where he had been to, say: "Ah! there yeou go
a-rattakin' about, and when yeou dew come home yeou've a cowd, I'll be
bound," which often enough was the case. Susan's contempt was great for
poor folks dressing up their children smartly; and she would say with
withering scorn, "What do har child want with all them
wandykes?"--_vandykes_ being lace trimmings of any sort. Was it of
spoilt children that she spoke as "hectorin' and bullockin'
about"?--certainly it was of one of us, a late riser, that she said, "I'd
soon out-of-bed har if I lived there."

Susan's treatment of Harry Collins, a crazy man subject to fits, was wise
and kind. Till Harry came to live with the Kemps, he had been kept in
bed to save trouble. Susan would have no more of bed for him than for
ordinary folks, but sent him on many errands and kept him in excellent
order. Her commands to him usually began with, "Co', Henry, be
stirrin';" and he stood in wholesome awe of her, and obeyed her like a
child. His fits were curious, for "one minute he'd be cussin' and
swearin', and the next fall a-prayin'." Once, too, he "leapt out of the
winder like a roebuck." Blind James Seaman, the other occupant of
Susan's back-room, came of good old yeoman ancestry. He wore a long blue
coat with brass buttons; and his favourite seat was the sunny bank near
our front gate.

In the room over Susan Kemp's lived Will Ruffles and his wife, a very
faithful old couple. The wife failed first. She had hurt herself a good
deal with a fall down the rickety stairs. Will saw to her to the last,
and watched carefully over her. The schoolmistress then, a Miss
Hindmarsh, took a great liking for the old man; and a friend of hers, a
widow lady in London, though she had never seen him, made him a regular
weekly allowance to the end of his life--two shilli