Abel himself was not altogether without a certain gentle consciousness that in this particular effort he had done well.

But he had no literary vanity.
"It comes nat'ral to me,"-- he modestly declared--"It's a God's gift which I takes thankful without pride." Helmsley had become very intimate with both Mr.and Mrs.Twitt.In his every-day ramble down to the ocean end of the "coombe" he often took a rest of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at Twitt's house before climbing up the stony street again to Mary Deane's cottage, and Mrs.
Twitt, in her turn, was a constant caller on Mary, to whom she brought all the news of the village, all the latest remedies for every sort of ailment, and all the oddest superstitions and omens which she could either remember or invent concerning every incident that had occurred to her or to her neighbours within the last twenty-four hours.

There was no real morbidity of character in Mrs.Twitt; she only had that peculiar turn of mind which is found quite as frequently in the educated as in the ignorant, and which perceives a divine or a devilish meaning in almost every trifling occurrence of daily life.

A pin on the ground which was not picked up at the very instant it was perceived, meant terrible ill-luck to Mrs.Twitt,--if a cat sneezed, it was a sign that there was going to be sickness in the village,--and she always carried in her pocket "a bit of coffin" to keep away the cramp.

She also had a limitless faith in the power of cursing, and she believed most implicitly in the fiendish abilities of a certain person, (whether male or female, she did not explain) whose address she gave vaguely as, "out on the hills," and who, if requested, and paid for the trouble, would put a stick into the ground, muttering a mysterious malison on any man or woman you chose to name as an enemy, with the pronounced guarantee:-- "As this stick rotteth to decay, So shall (Mr, Miss or Mrs So-and-so) rot away!" But with the exception of these little weaknesses, Mrs.Twitt was a good sort of motherly old body, warm-hearted and cheerful, too, despite her belief in omens.