Her frequent visits to Betty's cottage were
often the bright spots in her day. With her, almost alone among the poor
people, Diana was conscious of no greedy curiosity behind the spoken
words. Yet Betty was the living chronicle of the village, and what she
did not know about its inhabitants was not worth knowing.
Diana found her white and suffering as usual, but so bubbling with news
that she had no patience either with her own ailments or with the
peaches. Waving both aside, she pounced imperiously upon her visitor,
her queer yellowish eyes aglow with "eventful living."
"Did you hear of old Tom Murthly dropping dead in the medder last
Thursday?"
Diana had just heard of the death of the eccentric old man who for fifty
years--bachelor and miser--had inhabited a dilapidated house in
the village.
"Well, he did. Yo may take it at that--yo may." (A mysterious phrase,
equivalent, no doubt, to the masculine oath.) "'Ee 'ad a lot of
money--Tom 'ad. Them two 'ouses was 'is what stands right be'ind
Learoyds', down the village."
"Who will they go to now, Betty?"
Betty's round, shapeless countenance, furrowed and scarred by time,
beamed with the joy of communication.
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