CHAPTER XXIX 431
" The mistress has been dead this mony a year ."
" Have you lived with the family long ?" " I ' ve lived here thirty year . I nursed them all three ."
" That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant . I will say so much for you , though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar ."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare . " I believe ," she said , " I was quite mista ' en in my thoughts of you : but there is so mony cheats goes about , you mun forgie me ."
" And though ," I continued , rather severely , " you wished to turn me from the door , on a night when you should not have shut out a dog ."
" Well , it was hard : but what can a body do ? I thought more o ' th ' childer nor of mysel : poor things ! They ' ve like nobody to tak ' care on ' em but me . I ' m like to look sharpish ."
I maintained a grave silence for some minutes . " You munnut think too hardly of me ," she again remarked .
" But I do think hardly of you ," I said ; " and I ' ll tell you why -- not so much because you refused to give me shelter , or regarded me as an impostor , as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no ' brass ' and no house . Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am ; and if you are a Christian , you ought not to consider poverty a crime ."
" No more I ought ," said she : " Mr . St . John tells me so too ; and I see I wor wrang -- but I ' ve clear a different notion on you now to what I had . You look a raight down dacent little crater ."
" That will do -- I forgive you now . Shake hands ."