An' he such an objeck afore he died! It do seem like a holiday now to sit a bit." And she crossed her hands on her lap with a long breath of content.

A lock of grey hair had escaped from her bonnet, across her wrinkled forehead, and gave her a half-careless rakish air.

Her youth of long ago--a youth of mad spirits, and of an extraordinary capacity for physical enjoyment, seemed at times to pierce to the surface again, even through her load of years.

But in general she had a dreamy, sunny look, as of one fed with humorous fancies, but disinclined often to the trouble of communicating them.
"Well, I missed my daughter, I kin tell you," said Mrs.Brunt, with a sigh, "though she took a deal more lookin' after nor your good man, Mrs.
Jellison." Mrs.Brunt was a gentle, pretty old woman, who lived in another of the village almshouses, next door to the Pattons, and was always ready to help her neighbours in their domestic toils.

Her last remaining daughter, the victim of a horrible spinal disease, had died some nine or ten months before the Boyces arrived at Mellor.