In the morning Mrs. Allen was a little pale, and was asked by her husband if she was unwell, but she held her peace. George, too, rose, went about his work, and in the afternoon walked up to the cottage to meet his wife there. She was bright and smiling, and had a thousand things to tell him about what her mamma said, and how mamma hoped that the nasty pipe would be altered and never ought to have been there; and how she was coming after tea to talk to him, and how she herself, Priscilla, had got a plan.
“Why, I would put a grating, or something, over the pipe, so that it shouldn’t get stopped up.”
“But if the grating got stopped up that would be just as bad.”
“Well then, I wouldn’t have a well there at all. Why don’t you cover it over?”
‘“But what are you to do with the window? You cannot block out the light.”
So Priscilla’s “plans,” as she called them, were nothing. And though George had a plan which he thought might answer, he did not consult her about it.
SIX months afterwards Priscilla was about to give birth to her first-born. At Mrs. Allen’s earnest request old nurse Barton had been engaged, who nursed Mrs. Allen when George came into the world, and loved him like her own child. As a counterpoise, Mrs. Broad, who had desired a nurse from a distance, whom she knew, installed herself with Priscilla. Nurse Barton had a great dislike to Mrs. Broad, although she attended Mr. Broad’s ministrations at Tanner’s Lane. She was not a member of the church, and never could be got to propose herself for membership. There was, in fact, a slight flavour of Paganism about her. She was considered to belong to the “world,” and it was only her age and undoubted skill which saved her practice amongst the Tanner’s Lane ladies. There was a rival in the town; but she was a younger woman, and never went out to any of the respectable houses, save when Mrs. Barton was not available.
The child was safely born, and as soon as nurse Barton could be spared for an hour or two she went to Mrs. Allen, whom she found alone. The good woman then gave Mrs. Allen her opinions, which, by the way, she always gave with prefect frankness.
“Thank the Lord-i-mercy this ’ere job, Mrs. Allen, is near at an end. If it ’adn’t been my dear boy George’s wife, never would I have set foot in that ’ouse.”