She stood a moment looking round the little attic chamber, but without seeing either the somewhat untidy bed with its soiled patchwork quilt, or the washstand with its cracked jug, or the torn curtain pinned half-across the window; she saw instead her neighbour’s shrewd, kindly face bending over a pot of well-stewed tea, or nodding briefly in response to sundry requests for the use of a bucket, or the loan of a pan, and sometimes a few “spuds”. “Mind you do bring ’em back,” was all Mrs. Frizzel would say. Well, sometimes Mrs. Cross did bring them back, and sometimes Martha came and fetched ’em, but she never made a bit of fuss, and was always as kind and neighbourly as she could be. Mrs. Chaffey must be getting a bit settled by this time, Mrs. Cross thought, and resolved to pop in and ask how she was getting on. She smoothed her rough hair with the palms of her hands, jerked down her sleeves, which she usually wore rolled up till dinner-time, not because she fatigued herself with over-much work, but because it seemed somehow the proper thing to do of a morning; she twitched her apron straight, pinned over a gap in her bodice--Mrs. Cross was a great believer in the efficacy of pins, and rarely demeaned herself by using a needle and thread--and finally composing her features to an expression of polite and sympathetic interest, strolled leisurely downstairs and into her neighbour’s premises. Mrs. Chaffey was standing by her table, busily unpacking china, but when the other entered remarking genially that she thought she’d just look in to see how Mrs. Chaffey liked her noo place, and if she could lend a hand anywheres, she came forward with a somewhat frosty smile and set a chair. “Sit down, won’t ye?” she said. “I’m a bit busy, but there! it do do folks good to set a bit now and then.” “E-es, indeed, my dear,” responded Mrs. Cross enthusiastically; it was a sentiment she cordially endorsed. “Lard! if a body was to keep upon their legs from morn till night, churchyard ’ud be fuller at the year’s end nor it needs to be. I be pure glad you’ve a-took this ’ere house,” she added graciously, “’tis what I scarce expected as any respectable party ’ud come to it. The chimbley smokes,” said Mrs. Cross delightedly; “there, ’tis summat awful how it do smoke! And in the bedroom the rain and wind do fair beat in when a bit of a storm do come--’tis these ’ere queer little vooty winder-panes--rain comes through them so easy as anything. And the damp! there, Mrs. Frizzel, what lived here last, used to say many a time: ‘Mrs. Cross, my dear,’ she did use to say, ‘the damp do seem to creep into my very bwones’. But I be pure glad to see you here, I’m sure,” she summed up cheerfully, “and ’tis to be hoped as you’ll find it comfortable.” Mrs. Chaffey’s face, always somewhat plaintive in expression, had become more and more dismal as her neighbour proceeded, and she now heaved a deep sigh.