"She was a blessed woman," said Dinah; "God had given her a loving,
self-forgetting nature, and He perfected it by grace. And she was very
fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I often heard her talk of you in the same
sort of way. When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven
years old, she used to say, 'You'll have a friend on earth in your Aunt
Rachel, if I'm taken from you, for she has a kind heart,' and I'm sure
I've found it so."

"I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do anything for you,
I think; you're like the birds o' th' air, and live nobody knows how.
I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a mother's sister, if you'd come
and live i' this country where there's some shelter and victual for
man and beast, and folks don't live on the naked hills, like poultry
a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get married to some
decent man, and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave
off that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith
ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a poor wool-gathering
Methodist and's never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your
uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he's allays been
good-natur'd to my kin, for all they're poor, and made 'em welcome to
the house; and 'ud do for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do
for Hetty, though she's his own niece. And there's linen in the house
as I could well spare you, for I've got lots o' sheeting and
table-clothing, and towelling, as isn't made up. There's a piece o'
sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty spun--she was a rare
girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the children couldn't abide her;
and, you know, the spinning's going on constant, and there's new linen
wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where's the use o' talking,
if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her
senses, i'stead o' wearing yourself out with walking and preaching,