"
"I shall be quite content, I assure you," I answered. "Will you go and get
the key?"
"I have the key in my pocket, sir; for I thought that would be what you'd
be after, sir. And by the time you come to my age, sir, you'll learn to
think of your old bones, sir. I beg your pardon for making so free. For
mayhap, says I to myself, he be the gentleman as be come to take Mr.
Shepherd's duty for him. Be ye now, sir?"
All this was said in a slow sweet subdued tone, nearly of one pitch. You
would have felt that she claimed the privilege of age with a kind of
mournful gaiety, but was careful, and anxious even, not to presume upon it,
and, therefore, gentle as a young girl.
"Yes," I answered. "My name is Walton I have come to take the place of my
friend Mr. Shepherd; and, of course, I want to see the church."
"Well, she be a bee-utiful old church. Some things, I think, sir, grows
more beautiful the older they grows. But it ain't us, sir."
"I'm not so sure of that," I said. "What do you mean?"
"Well, sir, there's my little grandson in the cottage there: he'll never be
so beautiful again. Them children du be the loves. But we all grows uglier
as we grows older.
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