Page:Haworth's.djvu/155

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MISS FFRENCH MAKES A CALL.
131

more than all the rest, and took her under her protection at once.

"Tha'st getten th' wrong hymn-book," she whispered audibly, having glanced at the volume the servant handed to her. "We dunnot use Wesley aw th' toime. We use Mester Hixon's 'Songs o' Grace.' Tha can look on wi' me."

Her delicate attentions and experience quite won Dame Haworth's motherly heart.

"I never see a sharper little thing," she said, admiringly, afterward, "nor a old-fashioneder. There wasn't a tex' as she didn't find immediate, nor yet a hymn."

"Bless us!" said Mrs. Briarley, laboriously lugging the baby homeward. "An' to think o' her bein' th' mistress o' that big house, wi' aw them chaps i' livery at her beck an' call. Why, she's nowt but a common body, Jane Ann. She thanked thee as simple as ony other woman mought ha' done! She's noan quality. She'd getten a silk gown on, but it wur a black un, an' not so mich as a feather i' her bonnet. I'd ha' had a feather,if I'd ha' been her—a feather sets a body off. But that's allus th' road wi' folk as has brass—they nivver know how to spend it."

"Nay," said Janey, "she is na quality; but she's getten a noice way wi' her. Haworth is na quality hissen."

"She wur a noice-spoken owd body," commented Mrs. Briarley. "Seemt loike she took a fancy to thee."

Janey turned the matter over mentally, with serious thrift.

"I should na moind it if she did," she replied. "She'll ha' plenty to gi' away."

It was not long before they knew her well. She was a cheerful and neighborly little soul, and through the years