They had reached the shop by this time and the subject was necessarily dropped; but Inman remained thoughtful during the remainder of the day, and paid no attention to the rough handling the other man received, and especially the incompetent Abe, at the hands of the master. CHAPTER VII IN WHICH NANCY SPEAKS HER MIND ALTHOUGH Keturah had been up and busy for the better part of two hours, and Nancy was in the habit of rising at the same time and taking a subordinate share in such household duties as the older woman’s methodical housewifery allocated to the period before breakfast, the girl still lay in bed with her eyes wide open and her arms behind her head, and listened unmoved to the clatter downstairs, the increasing volume of which told her quite plainly that mistress Keturah was in a bad temper. The result of the ebullition she could have foretold with accuracy; and she smiled as it occurred to her that in similar circumstances, if she had been living in a city like Airlee, she could have found a café within a hundred yards of her home which would have spared her the trouble of preparing a meal for herself. That everything would be cleared away, and the kettle cold upon its iron stand when she should presently appear in the kitchen was as certain as the tides. The thought amused her, but set no machinery in motion save that of the brain which, indeed had been running for some time. For a few minutes Nancy let her mind contrast the conditions of town and country life. At her uncle’s a maid had brought her an early cup of tea at an hour when in Mawm the breakfast things had all been washed up and put away; and had drawn back the curtains, perhaps in order that the sight of bricks and chimney-pots through a smoke-laden atmosphere might beget a desire to rise and escape. To Nancy that “early” cup was just softness and a nuisance, not to be compared with the breezes that blew straight from the moors upon her bed, through the window which was never closed except when northerly gales drove rain before them.