Between The Old Lady And Myself I
Think There Was A Real Attachment.
She was never weary of sitting
to me for her portrait, in her best cap and brigand hat, and
With
all her wrinkles tidily composed, and though she never failed to
repudiate the result, she would always insist upon another trial.
It was as good as a play to see her sitting in judgment over the
last. 'No, no,' she would say, 'that is not it. I am old, to be
sure, but I am better-looking than that. We must try again.' When
I was about to leave she bade me good-bye for this life in a
somewhat touching manner. We should not meet again, she said; it
was a long farewell, and she was sorry. But life is so full of
crooks, old lady, that who knows? I have said good-bye to people
for greater distances and times, and, please God, I mean to see
them yet again.
One thing was notable about these women, from the youngest to the
oldest, and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety,
they could twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There
was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human
body, but a woman of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of
it, fair and square, by way of conversational adornment. My
landlady, who was pretty and young, dressed like a lady and avoided
patois like a weakness, commonly addressed her child in the
language of a drunken bully.
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