Of the two women Dr. Thorne much preferred his humbler friend, and to her he made his visits, not in the guise of a doctor, but as a neighbor. "Well, my lady," he said, as he sat down by her on a broad garden-seat—all the world called Lady Scatcherd "my lady"—"and how do these long summer days agree with you? Your roses are twice better out than any I see up at the big house."
"You may well call them long, doctor. They're long enough, surely."
"But not too long. Come, now, I won't have you complaining. You don't mean to tell me that you have any thing to make you wretched? You had better not, for I won't believe you."
"Eh! well; wretched! I don't know as I'm wretched. It'd be wicked to say that, and I with such comforts about me."
"I think it would, almost." The doctor did not say this harshly, but in a soft, friendly tone, and pressing her hand gently as he spoke.
"And I didn't mean to be wicked. I'm very thankful for every thing—leastways I always try to be. But, doctor, it is so lonely like."
"Lonely! not more lonely than I am."
"Oh yes, you're different. You can go every wheres. But what can a lone woman do? I'll tell you what, doctor, I'd give it all up to have Roger back, with his apron on and his pick in his hand. How well I mind his look when he'd come home o' nights."
"And yet it was a hard life you had then, eh! old woman? It would be better for you to be thankful for what you've got."
"I am thankful. Didn't I tell you so before?" said she, somewhat crossly. "But it's a sad life, this living alone. I declares I envy Hannah, 'cause she's got Jemima to sit in the kitchen with her. I want her to sit with me sometimes, but she won't."
"Ah! but you shouldn't ask her. It's letting yourself down."
"What do I care about down or up? It makes no difference, as he's gone. If he had lived one might have cared about being up, as you call it. Eh! deary, I'll be going after him before long, and it will be no matter then."
