Jane faintly smiled and shook her head.
“Yes, I do. Mamma says that if I were the poor little country boy, I might be one; but as I am the Earl of Oakburn I shall have other duties. Oh Jane, I do wish I could be a sailor! When I see the ships here, I long to run through the waves and get to them.”
“It is surprising what a taste he has for the sea,” murmured the countess to Jane; “he must have inherited it.” And poor Jane sighed with sad reminiscences.
Lucy came in. Jane took her hand, and smiled as she gazed at the bright and blushing face.
“And so, Lucy, you have contrived to fall in love without leave or licence!”
Lucy coloured to the roots of her hair, to the very nape of her delicate neck; her eyelids were cast down, and her fingers trembled in the hand of Lady Jane. All signs of true love, and Jane knew them to be so. The Countess of Oakburn approached Jane.
“I know you have felt the separation from Lucy,” she said, with emotion. “Had the terms of the will been such that I could have departed from them, Lucy should have been yours. I could not help myself, Lady Jane; but I have tried to make her all you could wish.”
“All any one could wish,” generously returned Jane, as she took Lady Oakburn’s hand. “You have nobly done your part by her. Do it by the boy, Lady Oakburn, and make him worthy of his father. I know you will.”
“Being helped to do so by a better Help than mine,” murmured the countess, as her eyes filled with tears.
And when Mr. Frederick Grey arrived that day and spoke out-as he did do—he was told that Lucy should be his.
CHAPTER XL.A TALE FROM MRS. PEPPERFLY.
The afternoon’s sun was shining on South Wennock: shining especially hard and full upon a small cottage standing by itself down Blister Lane. More especially did it appear to be shining upon a stout lady who was seated on a chair, placed midway in the narrow path leading from the little entrance gate to the cottage door. Her dress was light, what could be seen of it for snuff,—and so broad was she, taking up the width of the path and a great deal more, that she looked like a great tower, planted there to guard the approach of the cottage against assaulters.
Judith came down the lane. Two or three weeks had passed since the events recorded in the last chapter, and Lady Jane was back at South Wennock again. Jane had some poor pensioners in some of the smaller cottages lower down this lane, and the servant’s errand in it this afternoon was connected with them. Judith’s eyes fell upon the lady, airing herself in the sun.
“What, is it you, Mother Pepperfly! Why I have not seen you for an age. Well, you don’t get thinner!”
“I gets dreadful,” said Mrs. Pepperfly. “They might take me about in a caravan, and show me off to the public as the fat woman from South Wennock. Particularly if they could invent a decent way of exhibiting of the legs. Mine’s a sight, Judith.”
Mrs. Pepperfly gingerly lifted her petticoats a little, and Judith saw that the ankles were indeed a sight. “I wonder you don’t take exercise,” she said.
“Me take exercise!” uttered Mrs. Pepperfly, resentfully, “what’s the good of your talking to a woman of my size about exercise? It a'most kills me to get about when I changes my places. It’s my perfession as have brought me to it, Judith; always a sitting by a bedside, or a dandling a babby upon my knees; I haven’t been able to get exercise, and, in course, now I’m too fat to do it. But I must be thankful it’s no worse, for I retains my appetite, and can eat a famous good meal every time it’s set afore me.”
“I should eat less and leave off beer,” said Judith. “Beer’s very fattening.”
The tears rushed into Mrs. Pepperfly’s eyes at the cruel suggestion. “Beer’s the very prop and stay of my life,” cried she. “Nobody but a barbarian would tell a poor woman that has to sit up often o'nights, tending upon others, to leave off her beer. Il never shall leave off my beer, Judith, till it leaves off me.”
Judith thought that likely, and did not contest the point.
“I suppose you are nursing somebody up here,” she remarked. “Who lives in the cottage? The last time I came by, it wasn’t let.”
“I ain’t a nursing nobody,” returned Mrs. Pepperfly. “I’m up here on a visit. I left my place yesterday, and I expects to be fetched to another in a day or two, and I was invited here to spend the time atween.”
“Who’s the cottage let to?” continued Judith, dropping her voice.
“It’s a widder. She ain’t at home; she took the opportunity of my being here to get in a store of things she wanted, so she’s gone about it. We haven’t got nobody to overhear us that you should set on to whisper. I say, wasn’t it a curious thing,” added Mrs. Pepperfly, dropping her own voice to a whisper in opposition to what she had just said to Judith, “she