242 IDLEHURST ! 



pepper was just done. She gave instructions, with 



beseeching earnestness, as for orphans in an unfriendly 



world, about the linen then out in the top meadow, 



and the morning's milk in the pancheons, and the 



smearing of the skep when the bees were taken. If 



she had a thought for her kind, that she had served so 



unfailingly for fifty years, it was about little Jenny 



the kitchen-maid, who had lately shown tendencies 



to crockery-breaking, and had been late down twice 



in a month. Then she went to sleep, and two days 



after rose at her immitigable five in the morning, and 



went about her matters as though nothing had come 



between. Once or twice afterwards she referred to 



the horror of that week's holiday. " I felt," she told 



me, "just like a kitchen towel that had missed going 



to the wash. We've all got to die some day ; but if 



I could, I'd die all of a sudden, when I'd got all my 



work done and tidied up of a Saturday night." 



There may be worse ends than that, most faithful 



Lucy. 



My book has fallen unawares upon the grass. I 

 get up and stretch my legs round the garden. In the 

 warm south corner the peaches are ripening fast. As 

 I look at them, a swallow sweeps over the wall, and 

 the tortoiseshell butterfly skips into the air and 



