“I have come with a message from my niece,” he began. “She told me to say that she is sending up a small trifle—a little housewifely notion of hers—for your kind acceptance. She thought you might find it add a little variety to the cottage menu. As a matter of fact, the rectory pig has gone the way of most pigs! And we said, the moment we heard you had arrived, that we must get you to sample the home-grown article, so she is sending you up just a little piece of—— Ah, here it is, I expect”—as the Rector’s handy man came in at the gate, carrying the inevitable basket; and though the contents were wrapped up in a spotless white cloth, there was no need for one to be told what he was bringing.
I tried to be as truly grateful as ever I could; I told myself I must not think about the gift itself, but must keep my mind focused on the kind thought that had prompted the gift. Nevertheless, the basket seemed very heavy as I carried it into the larder, and added one more joint to the goodly collection already assembled. And as I went back into the living-room, I heard Virginia warbling outdoors:
“Not more than others I deserve, But Heaven has given me more.”
There is something singularly exasperating about other people’s joyousness, when it is purchased at one’s own expense!
We were restoring the last jug to its proper hook on the dresser, when once more we saw Miss Primkins toiling up the steep garden path.
She really felt terribly ashamed to be intruding on me again; but she had just read in the paper that the Prime Minister now said everyone must save, and no one who was a true patriot would spend more than was absolutely necessary. Now what was the difference between hoarding and saving? She did so want to do the right thing; it was so little she could do to help her country. Yet, for the life of her, she couldn’t make out whether she ought to save that £12 or spend it.
Would I mind explaining it to her? She never could understand anything Prime Ministers, or people like that, said nowadays; so different from what it was in her young days. When there was only Lord Salisbury and Mr. Gladstone everything was so sensible and straightforward. Her father used to say: “Always believe Lord Salisbury; never believe Mr. Gladstone”—or else it was the other way round, she wasn’t sure which. Whereas now, what with radicals, and coalitions, and territorials, and boards of this, that, and the other, her brain almost gave way trying to find out who anybody was.