But Mary secretly determined to take care that Alice brought her
tea-cup and saucer, if the alternative was to be her sharing
anything with Jem.

Alice Wilson had but just come in. She had been out all day in the
fields, gathering wild herbs for drinks and medicine, for in
addition to her invaluable qualities as a sick nurse and her worldly
occupations as a washerwoman, she added a considerable knowledge of
hedge and field simples; and on fine days, when no more profitable
occupation offered itself, she used to ramble off into the lanes and
meadows as far as her legs could carry her. This evening she had
returned loaded with nettles, and her first object was to light a
candle and see to hang them up in bunches in every available place
in her cellar room. It was the perfection of cleanliness; in one
corner stood the modest-looking bed, with a check curtain at the
head, the whitewashed wall filling up the place where the
corresponding one should have been. The floor was bricked, and
scrupulously clean, although so damp that it seemed as if the last
washing would never dry up. As the cellar window looked into an
area in the street, down which boys might throw stones, it was
protected by an outside shutter, and was oddly festooned with all
manner of hedge-row, ditch, and field plants, which we are
accustomed to call valueless, but which have a powerful effect
either for good or for evil, and are consequently much used among
the poor. The room was strewed, hung, and darkened with these
bunches, which emitted no very fragrant odour in their process of
drying. In one corner was a sort of broad hanging shelf, made of
old planks, where some old hoards of Alice's were kept. Her little
bit of crockery-ware was ranged on the mantelpiece, where also stood
her candlestick and box of matches. A small cupboard contained at