“Better have nothing to look forward to than some things to look back upon,” answered Mrs. Piggott, sententiously; which immediately elicited from Miss Dobbin the inquiry whether she had got that out of her own head or somebody else’s, and if these were some things she did not care to look back upon. Clearly, the housekeeper said the girl could come to no good, and yet in her heart Mrs. Piggott liked this feminine ne’er-do-weel, and would have felt the house lonely without her. On the whole, she preferred Prissy’s chatter to the more staid and sensible discourse of Jane, the housemaid, or Sarah, her assistant in dairy and kitchen. Though torture could not have wrung such a confession from her, Mrs. Piggott dearly loved gossip; and, if she had searched the home counties through, she could not have discovered a more industrious collector and retailer of news than Priscilla Dobbin. From the colour of the moire antique the vicar’s wife wore when she went to dine at Moorlands, to the name of Miss Amy Raidsford’s “intended,” Priscilla had every atom of parish information at her fingers’ ends. Why the lady’s-maid was dismissed from Moorlands—what Lord Kemms said when he found his gardener sending all the best fruit to Covent Garden, and only retaining windfalls for dessert at the Park—Prissy knew as well as though she had been present. Nor was it only from the neighbourhood of North Kemms that Miss Dobbin collected materials for conversation. She knew all about the low marriage Mr. Harry Camperdon, the Fifield rector’s son, had contracted with the sexton’s daughter from Palinsbridge. “And I wouldn’t ha’ married her if she had been hung with diamonds—should always ha’ felt or thought she had been dug up out of the graves. Seen her?—to be sure I have, Mrs. Piggott—as thin as a hurdle, and as pale and sickly-looking as a bit of your underdone crust. She’s a contrast to Mrs. Raidsford. You don’t mean to say you have never had a sight of Mrs. Raidsford! then you have a treat to come; like the side of a house, and mean! would look after the candles’ ends, if her husband let her, and grudges throwing away her nail-parings. There is not a servant in the house dare give a glass of beer unbeknown, and they all say a nicer gentleman nobody need wish to serve. It is thought Lord Kemms would make up to one of the daughters, if it wasn’t for her; but he can’t abide her. Well, if I was Lord Kemms, I know who I’d have—money or no money.”