Cranford

“Well”— said I at last. “I’m thankful you begin with ‘well!’ If you’d have begun with ‘but,’ as you did afore, I’d not ha’ listened to you. Now you may go on.” “I know you would be a great loss to Miss Matty, Martha”— “I telled her so. A loss she’d never cease to be sorry for,” broke in Martha triumphantly. “Still, she will have so little— so very little— to live upon, that I don’t see just now how she could find you food— she will even be pressed for her own. I tell you this, Martha, because I feel you are like a friend to dear Miss Matty, but you know she might not like to have it spoken about.” Apparently this was even a blacker view of the subject than Miss Matty had presented to her, for Martha just sat down on the first chair that came to hand, and cried out loud (we had been standing in the kitchen). At last she put her apron down, and looking me earnestly in the face, asked, “Was that the reason Miss Matty wouldn’t order a pudding to-day? She said she had no great fancy for sweet things, and you and she would just have a mutton chop. But I’ll be up to her. Never you tell, but I’ll make her a pudding, and a pudding she’ll like, too, and I’ll pay for it myself; so mind you see she eats it. Many a one has been comforted in their sorrow by seeing a good dish come upon the table.”