said putting out her hand and laying it affectionately on the hand of her old servant dear you are not going to be married me ma am returned staring lord bless you no not just yet said my mother tenderly never cried my mother took her hand and said don t leave me stay with me it will not be for long perhaps what should i ever do without you me leave you my precious cried not for all the world and his wife why what s put that in your silly little head � had been used of old to talk to my mother sometimes like a child but my mother made no answer except to thank her and went running on in her own fashion me leave you i think i see myself go away from you i should like to catch her at it no no no said shaking her head and folding her arms not she my dear it isn t that there ain t some cats that would be well enough pleased if she did but they shan t be pleased they shall be i stay with you till i am a cross old woman and when i m too deaf and too lame and too blind and too for want of teeth to be of any use at all even to be found fault with then i shall go to my and ask him to take me in and says i i shall be glad to see you and i make you as welcome as a queen bless your dear heart cried i know you will and she kissed me beforehand in grateful acknowledgment of my hospitality after that she covered her head up with her apron again and had another laugh about mr after that she took the baby out of its little cradle and nursed it after that she cleared the dinner table after that came in with another cap on and her work box and the yard measure and the bit of wax candle all just the same as ever we sat round the fire and talked delightfully i told them what a hard master mr was and they pitied me very much i told them what a fine fellow was and what a patron of mine and said she would walk a score of miles to see him i took the little baby in my arms when it was awake and nursed it lovingly when it was asleep again i crept close to my mother s side according to my old custom broken now a long time and sat with my arms embracing her waist and my little red cheek on her shoulder and once more felt her beautiful hair drooping over me � like an angel s wing as i used to think i recollect � and was very happy indeed while i sat thus looking at the fire and seeing pictures in the red hot coals i almost believed that i had never been away that mr and miss were such pictures and would vanish when the fire got low and that there was nothing real in all that i remembered save my mother and i away at a as long as she could see and then g the personal history and experience sat with it drawn on her left hand like a glove and her needle in her right ready to take another whenever there was a blaze i cannot conceive whose stockings they can have been that was always or where such an supply of stockings in want of can have come from my earliest infancy she seems to have been always employed in that class of and never by any chance in any other i wonder said who was sometimes seized with a fit of wondering on some most unexpected topic what s become of s lor observed my mother rousing herself from a reverie what nonsense you talk well but i really do wonder ma am said what can have put such a person in your head inquired my mother is there nobody else in the world to come there i don t know how it is said unless it s on account of being stupid but my head never can pick and choose its people they come and they go and they don t come and they don t go just as they like i wonder what s become of her how absurd you are returned my mother one would suppose you wanted a second visit from her lord forbid cried well then don t talk about such uncomfortable things there s a good soul said my mother miss is shut up in her cottage by the sea no doubt and will remain there at all events she is not likely ever to trouble us again no mused no that ain t likely at all � i wonder if she was to die whether she d leave anything good gracious me returned my mother what a woman you are when you know that she took offence at the poor dear boy s ever being born at all i suppose she wouldn t be inclined to forgive him now hinted why should she be inclined to forgive him now said my mother rather sharply now that he s got a brother i mean said my mother immediately began to cry and wondered how dared to say such a thing as if this poor little innocent in its cradle had ever done any harm to you or anybody else you jealous thing said she you had much better go and marry mr the why don t you i should make miss happy if i was to said wliat a bad disposition you have returned my mother you are as jealous of miss as it is possible for a ridiculous creature to be you want to keep the keys yourself and give out all the things 