It was very fortunate that he had excellent neighbours in old Mrs. Norris (old Nanny, he called her) and her son, known as Kid, Kiddy, or Kidder. While stooping over our turfs I heard many tiny details of Bettesworth's kindly relations with these good people; and, as pleasantly as oddly, between them and myself a sort of friendship grew up, through the old man's mediation. We seldom met; we knew little of one another save what he told us; but he must have gone home and talked to them of me, just as he came here and told me about them; and thus, while I was learning to like them cordially, I think they were learning to like me, and it seemed to stamp with the seal of genuineness my intercourse with Bettesworth himself. But it was truly queer. Old Nanny Norris--the skinny old woman with the strange Mongolian or Tartar face and eyes--took to stopping for a chat, if we met on the road. In the town once, where I stood talking with some one else, she, coming up from behind me, could not pass on without looking round, nodding joyfully and grimacing her countenance--the countenance of an eastern image--into a jolly smile. She wore a Paisley shawl, and a little bonnet gay with russet and pink. Bettesworth was distressed only by Nanny's deafness. "_En't_ that a denial to anybody!" he exclaimed feelingly. "There, I can't talk to her. I always did hate talkin' to anybody deaf. Everybody can hear what you got to say, and if 't en't nothing, still you don't want everybody to hear it.... Old Kid _breaks_ out at her sometimes: 'Gaw' dangy! I'll _make_ ye hear!' Every now an' then I laughs to myself to hear 'n, sittin' in there by myself." He handed me another turf, and continued: "'Tis a good thing for she that old Kidder en't never got married. But she slaves about for 'n; nobody _could_n't do no more for 'n than she do. When I got home to dinner she come runnin' round. She'd jest bin to pay all his clubs for 'n. He belongs to three clubs: two slate clubs an' the Foresters." "He doesn't mean to be in any trouble if he's ill," I grumbled up from the turf. "Not he. Thirty-two shillin's a week he'll get, if he's laid up. There's Alf" (one of his half-brothers) "and him--rare schemin' fellers they be, no mistake." Particulars followed about this family of strong brothers; but, in fine, "Kidder 've always bin the darlin'. He's the youngest."