"I should think that would do for Hill."
"Thank you, miss. 'Ow would 'The 'Edge' do, miss?"
"But we have no hedge." (She shall not have anything with an h in
it, if I can help it.)
"No, miss, but I thought I might set out a bit, if worst come to
worst."
"And wait three or four years before people would know why the
cottage was named? Oh no, Mrs. Bobby."
"Thank you, miss."
"We might have something quite out of the common, like 'Providence
Cottage,' down the bank. I don't know why Mrs. Jones calls it
Providence Cottage, unless she thinks it's a providence that she has
one at all; or because, as it's just on the edge of the hill, she
thinks it's a providence that it hasn't blown off. How would you
like 'Peace' or 'Rest' Cottage?"
"Begging your pardon, miss, it's neither peace nor rest I gets in it
these days, with a twenty-five pound debt 'anging over me, and three
children to feed and clothe."
"I fear we are not very clever, Mrs. Bobby, or we should hit upon
the right thing with less trouble. I know what I will do: I will
go down in the road and look at the place for a long time from the
outside, and try to think what it suggests to me."
"Thank you, miss; and I'm sure I'm grateful for all the trouble you
are taking with my small affairs."
Down I went, and leaned over the wicket-gate, gazing at the unnamed
cottage. The brick pathway was scrubbed as clean as a penny, and
the stone step and the floor of the little kitchen as well. The
garden was a maze of fragrant bloom, with never a weed in sight.
The fowl cackled cheerily still, adding insult to injury, the pet
sheep munched grass contentedly, and the canaries sang in their
cages under the vines. Mrs. Bobby settled herself on the porch with
a pan of peas in her neat gingham lap, and all at once I cried:-
"'Comfort Cottage'! It is the very essence of comfort, Mrs. Bobby,
even if there is not absolute peace or rest. Let me paint the
signboard for you this very day."
Mrs. Bobby was most complacent over the name. She had the greatest
confidence in my judgment, and the characterisation pleased her
housewifely pride, so much so that she flushed with pleasure as she
said that if she 'ad 'er 'ealth she thought she could keep the place
looking so that the passers-by would easily h'understand the name.
Chapter XXIII. Tea served here.
It was some days after the naming of the cottage that Mrs. Bobby
admitted me into her financial secrets, and explained the
difficulties that threatened her peace of mind. She still has
twenty-five pounds to pay before Comfort Cottage is really her own.
With her cow and her vegetable garden, to say nothing of her
procrastinating fowl, she manages to eke out a frugal existence, now
that her eldest son is in a blacksmith's shop at Worcester, and is
sending her part of his weekly savings.
