opinions for the same price; the town prophesied well of
it. That left only five at home, but they always had Abby
over in the West Ward, where Abby's housekeeping made an
interest and Abby's baby a point of pilgrimage. These
considerations almost consoled Mrs Murchison declaring,
as she did, that all of them might have gone but Abby,
who alone knew how to be "any comfort or any dependence"
in the house; who could be left with a day's preserving;
and I tell you that to be left by Mrs Murchison with a
day's preserving, be it cherries or strawberries, damsons
or pears, was a mark of confidence not easy to obtain.
Advena never had it; Advena, indeed, might have married
and removed no prop of the family economy. Mrs Murchison
would have been "sorry for the man"--she maintained a
candour toward and about those belonging to her that
permitted no illusions--but she would have stood cheerfully
out of the way on her own account. When you have seen
your daughter reach and pass the age of twenty-five
without having learned properly to make her own bed, you
know without being told that she will never be fit for
the management of a house--don't you? Very well then.
And for ever and for ever, no matter what there was to
do, with a book in her hand--Mrs Murchison would put an
emphasis on the "book" which scarcely concealed a contempt
for such absorption. And if, at the end of your patience,
you told her for any sake to put it down and attend to
matters, obeying in a kind of dream that generally drove
you to take the thing out of her hands and do it yourself,
rather than jump out of your skin watching her.