's time is very
valuable, they cannot afford to spend too much of it in running about
after each other."

"What makes their time worth any more'n our'n?"

"They are making money so fast with it."

"And is _that_ what makes folks' time valeyable?"

"In their opinion, madam."

"I never could see no use in havin' much money," said the old lady.

"But there comes a question," said Dillwyn. "What is 'much'?"

"More'n enough, I should say."

"Enough for what? That also must be settled."

"I'm an old-fashioned woman," said the old lady, "and I go by the
old-fashionedst book in the world. That says, 'we brought nothing into
this world, and we can carry nothing out; therefore, having food and
raiment, let us be therewith content.'"

"But, again, what sort of food, and what sort of raiment?" urged the
gentleman pleasantly. "For instance; would you be content to exchange
this delicious manufacture,--which seems to me rather like ambrosia
than common food,--for some of the black bread of Norway? with no
qualification of golden butter? or for Scotch oatmeal bannocks? or for
sour corn cake?"

"I would be quite content, if it was the Lord's will," said the old
lady. "There's no obligation upon anybody to have it _sour_."

Mr. Dillwyn laughed gently. "I can fancy," he said, "that you never
would allow such a dereliction in duty. But, beside having the bread
sweet, is it not allowed us to have the best we can get?"

"The best we can _make_," answered Mrs. Armadale; "I believe in
everybody doin' the best he kin with what he has got to work with; but
food ain't worth so much that we should pay a large price for it."

The gentleman's eye glanced with a scarcely perceptible movement over
the table at which he was sitting. Bread, indeed, in piles of white
flakiness; and butter; but besides, there was the cold ham in delicate
slices, and excellent-looking cheese, and apples in a sort of beautiful
golden confection, and cake of superb colour and texture; a pitcher of
milk that was rosy sweet, and coffee rich with cream. The glance that
took all this in was slight and swift, and yet the old lady was quick
enough to see and understand it.

"Yes," she said, "it's all our'n, all there is on the table. Our cow
eats our own grass, and Madge, my daughter, makes the butter and the
cheese. We've raised and cured our own pork; and the wheat that makes
the bread is grown on our ground too; we farm it out on shares; and it
is ground at