The “Dutchwoman” resumed in a minute, and observed,—

“Well, old Tarnley, there’s no good in talking where you can’t right yourself, and where you can revenge, there’s no good in talk either; but gone it is, and the doctors say no cutting, nothing safe in my case; no cure, so let it be. I liked dress once; I dressed pretty well.”

“Beautiful!” exclaimed old Mildred, kindling for a moment into her earlier admiration of the French and London finery with which once this tall and faded beauty had amazed the solitudes of Carwell.

The bleached, big woman smiled—almost laughed with gratified vanity.

“Yes, I was well dressed—something better than the young dowdies and old fromps, in this part of the world. How I used to laugh at them! I went to church, and to the races, to see them. Well, we’ll have better times yet at Wyvern; the old man there can’t live for ever; he’s not the Wandering Jew, and he can’t be far from a hundred; and so sure as Charles is my husband, I’ll have you there, if you like it, or give you a snug house, and a bit of ground, and a garden, and a snug allowance monthly, if you like this place best. I love my own, and you’ve been true to me, and I never failed a friend.”

“I’m growing old and silly, ma’am—never so strong as I was took for. The will was ever stronger with Mildred than the body, bless ye—no, no; two or three quiet years to live as I should a lived always, wi’ an eye on my Bible and an eye on my ways—not that I ever did aught I need be one bit ashamed on—no, not I; honest and sober, and most respectable, thank God, as the family will testify, and the neighbours; but I’ll not deny, ’twould be something not that bad, if my old bones could rest a bit,” said old Mildred.

“Ha, girl, they shall; your old bones shall rest, my child,” said the lady.

“They’ll rest some day in the old church-yard o’ Carwell, but not much sooner, I’m thinking,” said Mrs. Tarnley.

“Folly, folly! ole girl; you’ve many a year to go before that journey; you’ll live to see me, Mrs. Vairvield of Wyvern, and it won’t be a bad day for you, old Mildred.”

The “Dutchwoman,” or the old soldier, as they used to call her long ago in this sequestered nook, drawled this languidly, and yawned a long, listless yawn.

“Well, ma’am, if you’re tired, so am I,” said Mildred, a little tartly; “and as for dreamin’ o’ quiet in this world, I ha’ cleared my head o’ that nonsense many a year ago. There’s little good can happen old Mildred now, and less I look for, and none I’ll seek, ma’am; and as for a roof over my head for nothing, and that bit o’ ground ye spoke of, and wages to live on without no work, I don’t believe there’s no such luck going for no one.”

“Listen to me, Mildred,” said the stranger, more sternly than before; “is it because I don’t swear you won’t believe? Hear, now, once for all, and understand: I’ll make that a good day for you that makes me the lady of Wyvern. Sharp and hard I’ve been with those I owed a knock to, but I never yet forgot a friend; you may do me a service tomorrow or next day, mind, and if you stand by me, I’ll stand by you; you need but ask and have, ask what you will.”

“Well, now, ma’am—bah! what talk it is! Lawk, ma’am; don’t I know the world, ma’am, and what sort o’ place it is? I a’ bin promised many a fine thing in my day, and here I am still—old and weary—among the pots and pans every night and mornin’, and up to my elbows in suds every Saturday; that’s all that ever came o’ fine promises to Mildred Tarnley.”

“Well, you used to say, it’s a long lane that has no turn. You’ll have a glass of this?” and she popped the brandy—bottle on the table beside her, with her hand fast on its neck.

“No brandy—no nothing, ma’am, I thank ye.”

“What! no brandy? Pish, girl, nonsense.”

“No, ma’am, I thank ye, I never drinks nothing o’ the sort—a mug o’ beer after washing or the like—but my headache never would abear brandy.”

“Once and away—come,” solicited the old soldier.

“No, I thank ye, ma’am; I’ll swallow nothing o’ the kind, please.”

“What a mule! You won’t have a nip with an old friend, after so long an absence—come, Mildred, come; where’s the glass?”

“Here’s the glass, ’m, but not a drop for me, ma’am; I won’t drink nothing o’ the sort, please.”

“Not from me, I suppose; but if you mean to say you never do, I don’t believe you,” said the Dutchwoman, more nettled, it seemed, than such a failure of good fellowship in Mrs. Tarnley would naturally have warranted. Perhaps she had particularly strong reasons for making old Mildred frank, genial, and intimate that night.

“I don’t tell lies,” said Mildred.

“Don’t you?” said the “old soldier,” and elevated the brows of her sightless eyes, and screwed her lips with ugly ridicule.

Mrs. Tarnley looked with a dark shrewdness upon this meaning mask, trying to discover the exact force of its significance. She felt very uncomfortable.

The blind woman’s face expanded into a broad smile. She shrugged, shook her head and laughed How odiously wide her face looked as she laughed! Mildred did not know exactly what to make of her.

“But if you did tell lies,” drawled the lady, “even to me, what does it matter, if you promised to tell no more ? So let us shake hands—where’s your hand?”

And she kept shuffling her big hand upon the table, palm upward, with its fingers groping in the air like the claws of a crab upon its back.

“Give me—give me—give me your hand, I say,” said she.

“Tain’t for the like o’ me,” replied Mildred, with grim formality.

“You’d better be friendly. Come, give me your hand.”

“Well, ma’am, ’tain’t for me to dispute your pleasure,” answered the old servant, and she slipped her hard fingers upon the upturned palm of the Dutchwoman, who clutched them with a strenuous friendship, and held them fast.

“I like you, Tarnley; we’ve had rough words, sometimes, but no ill blood, and I’ll do what I said. I never failed a friend, as you will see, if only you be my friend; and why or for whom should you not? Tut, we’re not fools!”

“The time is past for me to quarrel, being to the wrong side o’ sixty more than you’d suppose, and quiet all I wants—quiet, ma’am.”

“Yes, quiet and comfort, too, and both you shall have, Mildred Tarnley, if you don’t choose to quarrel with those who would be kind to you, if you’d let them. Yes, indeed, who would be kind, and very kind, if you’d only let them. No, leave your hand where it is, I can’t see you, and it’s sometimes dull work talking only to a voice. If I can’t see you I’ll feel you, and hold you, old girl—hold you fast till I know what terms we’re on.”

All this time she had Mildred Tarnley’s hand between hers, and was fondling and kneading it as a rustic lover in the agonies of the momentous question might have done fifty years ago.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, ma’am, no more than the plate there. Little good left in Mildred Tarnley now, and small power to help or hurt anyone, great or small, at these years.”

“I want you to be friendly with me, that’s all; I ask no more, and it ain’t a great deal, all things considered. Friendly talk, of course, ain’t all I mean, that’s civility, and civility’s very well, very pleasant, like a lady’s fan, or her lap-dog, but nothing at a real pinch, nothing to fight a wolf with. Come, old Mildred, Mildred Tarnley, good Mildred, can I be sure of you, quite sure?”

“Sure and certain, ma’am, in all honest service.”

“Honest service! Yes, of course; what else could we think of? You used to like, I remember, Mildred, a nice ribbon in your bonnet. I have two pieces quite new. I brought them from London. Satin ribbon—purple one is—I know you’ll like it, and you’ll drink a glass of this to please me.

“Thanks for the ribbons, ma’am, I’ll not refuse ’em; but I won’t drink nothing, ma’am, I thank you.”

“Well, please yourself in that. Pour out a little for me, there’s a glass, ain’t there?”

“Yes, ’m. How much will you have, ma’am?”

“Half a glass. There’s a dear. Stingy half glass,” she continued, putting her finger in to gauge the quantity. “Go on, go on, remember my long journey today. Do you smoke, Mildred?”

“Smoke, ’m? No, ’m! Dear me, there’s no smell o’ tobacco is there?” said Mildred, who was always suspecting Tom of smoking slily in his crib under the stairs.

“Smell, no; but I smoke a pinch of tobacco now and again myself, the doctor says I must, and a breath just of opium when I want it. You can have a pipe of tobacco if you like, child, and you needn’t be shy.

“Ho, Fau! No, ma’am, I thank ye.”

“Fau!” echoed the Dutchwoman, with a derisive, chilling laugh, which apprized old Mildred of her solecism. But the lady did not mean to quarrel.

“What sort of dress have you for Sundays, going to church, and all that?”

“An old dress it is now. I had the material, ye’ll mind, when ye was here, long ago; but it wasn’t made up t............