without passing a human habitation, and then came to one of the most
desolate-looking cottages I ever remember seeing. It was little
better than a cabin, and consisted only of two rooms--a kind of
kitchen or dwelling-room, and a dark little bedchamber opening out
of it.

'I am not going to introduce you to a very agreeable person, Mary,'
Milly said, when we were within a few paces of this solitary
dwelling; 'but old Rebecca is a character in her way, and I make a
point of coming to see her now and then, though she is not always
very gracious to me.'

It was a warm bright summer's day, but the door and the single
window of the cottage were firmly closed. Milly knocked with her
hand, and a thin feeble old voice called to her to 'come in.'

We went in: the atmosphere of the place was hot, and had an
unpleasant doctor's-shoppish kind of odour, which I found was caused
by some herbs in a jar that was simmering over a little stove in a
corner. Bunches of dried herbs hung from the low ceiling, and on an
old-fashioned lumbering chest of drawers that stood in the window
there were more herbs and roots laid out to dry.

'Mrs. Thatcher is a very clever doctor, Mary,' said Milly, as if by
way of introduction; 'all our servants come to her to be cured when
they have colds and coughs.--And how are you this lovely summer
weather, Mrs. Thatcher?'

'None too well, miss,' grumbled the old woman; 'I don't like the
summer time; it never suited me.'