"It's a terr'ble lonesome part from what I hear tell. Miles from the rail, and the house don't stand as it might be in the village street, but by itself in the fields. Mrs Roy--that's the Reverend Roy's wife-- was very straight with me about it. `If you think, Mrs Lane,' says she, `that your daughter'll find the place too dull and far away I'd rather you'd say so at once, and I'll look out for another girl. It's not at all like London,' says she, `and I make no doubt Biddy will feel strange at first.'" Mrs Lane wielded a large Britannia metal teapot as she spoke, kept an eye on the sympathetic neighbour sitting opposite at the tea-table, and also contrived to cast a side glance at Biddy, who stood at the fire making toast and listening to the conversation. She had heard her mother say much the same thing a great many times since it had been settled that she was to go to Wavebury and take care of Mrs Roy's baby, and she was now quite used to hearing that it was a "lonesome" place, though she did not know what it meant. At any rate it must be something impossible to get at Number 6 Buzley's Court, Whitechapel, where she had lived all the thirteen years of her life. Perhaps she might find it pleasant to be "lonesome," she thought, and yet her mother always added the word "terr'ble" to it, as if it were a thing generally to be disliked. Meanwhile the conversation went on: "And she goes to-morrow, then?" said Mrs Jones. "Now I dessay it's a fairish long journey by rail?" "We've got all directions wrote out clear, by the Reverend Roy hisself," answered Mrs Lane proudly. "Biddy, reach me that letter out of the chany jug on the shelf." Receiving it, she flattened it carefully out on the table with the palm of her hand before the admiring eyes of Mrs Jones, and, pointing to each word, read out slowly and loudly the directions for Biddy's journey. "She gets out, yer see, at Canley station. That's as far as the rail goes. There she'll be met and druv over to Wavebury--eight miles, Mrs Roy said." "Dear!" exclaimed Mrs Jones, as the letter was folded up again, "what a outlandish place!" "We've worked hard, Biddy and me," continued Mrs Lane with a glance of pride at her daughter and a little sigh, "to get all her things nice and ready. Two new dark laylock prints I've got her." "With a spot?" inquired Mrs Jones full of interest. "No, with a sprig--I always think there's an air about a laylock print with a sprig. It looks respectable and like service. I don't hold with them new-patterned bright cottons. Once in the wash-tub, and where are they afterwards? Poor ragged-out things not fit to wear. I remember I had laylock prints when I first went to service as a gal, and there's bits of them very gowns in the patch-work quilt yonder." "Ah!" said Mrs Jones admiringly. Then looking at Biddy's capable little square figure she added, "You'll miss her at first a goodish bit at home."