"We’re through, thank ye. We’re just off." Sarah pushed her plate from her, and began to fumble shakily for the thread gloves. May looked across at her with a troubled glance, and gathered the parcels together, ready to move. Eliza, however, had no intention of allowing them to escape so soon. "You’re surely not thinking o’ stirring yet!" she exclaimed, in a hurt tone. "What, we’ve barely as much as passed the time o’ day! You’ll not grudge me a word or two after all my trouble, and me that throng wi’ shopping I didn’t know where to turn. Will was as full of nods and becks as a row o’ poppies in a wind, and I’ve been fair aching ever since to know what he could be at." She turned in her seat to call a waitress, and ordered a substantial meal; after which, throwing back her fur, she leaned her arms on the table, and resumed her smile. Everybody in the place knew what Eliza Thornthwaite was having for her dinner, and here and there they were saying to each other, "They do themselves rarely at Blindbeck.... There’s a deal o’ brass to Blindbeck ... ay, Blindbeck’s plenty o’ brass!" Eliza knew what they were saying, of course, and felt unctuously pleased; but May’s heart swelled as she looked at Sarah’s scanty, unfinished repast and the thin thread gloves that she was smoothing over her wrists. Eliza had taken off her own gloves by now, showing thick fingers and short nails. They were trapped in the alcove as long as she sat at the table-end, because of her big, overflowing figure which shut the two of them in. They would have to push their way past her if they wanted to get out, and Sarah would never as much as touch her with the end of a ten-foot pole. "I’d ha’ done what I could, I’m sure," Eliza was busy telling them again. "I’d never say no to folks as can’t help themselves. But there,--I needn’t ha’ bothered about it,--you’re as right as rain. Will had it you were off to t’doctor’s, but I made sure he was wrong. I haven’t seen you looking so well for a month o’ Sundays, and that’s the truth." She raised herself as the waitress set a steaming plate in front of her, and stared at it critically. "Eh, well, you’ve not that much to bother you, have you?" she added kindly, setting to work,--"nobbut Simon to see to, and just that bit of a spot? ’Tisn’t the same for you as it is for me, with that great place of our’n on my hands, and the house fair crowded out." Sarah did not speak, but she saw, as she was intended to see, a picture of the good farm where Mrs. Will reigned supreme, of her sons and daughters and their friends, and her hired lasses and lads; and after that another picture of her own empty home, where no youthful steps sounded along the floors, and no vibrant young voices rang against the roof. The pictures hurt her, as they were meant to do, as well as the cheerful comment upon her looks. Eliza always assumed that you were as strong as a horse, even if you lay on your death-bed at her feet.