A Farmer’s Life 
herself—unless once, in an impersonal way. 
This was when she mentioned—I forget in what 
connection—how much she had disliked to see 
the other dressmaking girls drop their work and 
begin to be idle as soon as my aunt Margaret’s 
back was turned. 
Amongst the treasures she brought with her 
when she finally came to this house was an old 
purse containing a few crooked sixpences. She 
had had a little hoard of them once—a couple of 
dozen or so. Her sister Susan had saved and 
given them to her, one at a time, on those Saturday 
returns from the apprenticeship to the farm home. 
After seventy years they still seemed to tell of 
sisterly love. It betokens that the elder sister 
considered often the other’s plight, and that the 
younger knew and remembered the sympathy, 
with emotion on either side for which they had no 
words. 
2 
Arrer the apprenticeship was over, a weekly 
wage of three shillings was offered, but I think 
declined. Ann was twenty years old and at 
home again when that expedition was made to 
the Great Exhibition which Ann’s father chose to 
think beneath an experienced man like himself. 
A party was made up from the two families—some 
Smiths from Farnborough, some Sturts from 
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