In short, he dwelt upon it so exclusively and so persistently that it went near to breaking his heart; but that was not until his heart was older, and therefore more capable of being broken past mending again.
Miss Farringdon and the people of Sedgehill were alike delighted to have Elisabeth among them once more; she was a girl with a strong personality; and people with strong personalities have a knack of making themselves missed when they go away.
"It's nice, and so it is, to have Miss Elisabeth back again," remarked Mrs.Bateson to Mrs.Hankey; "and it makes it so much cheerfuller for Miss Farringdon, too." "Maybe it'll only make it the harder for Miss Farringdon when the time comes for Miss Elisabeth to be removed by death or by marriage; and which'll be the best for her--poor young lady!--the Lord must decide, for I'm sure I couldn't pass an opinion, only having tried one, and that nothing to boast of." "I wonder if Miss Farringdon will leave her her fortune," said Mrs.
Bateson, who, in common with the rest of her class, was consumed with an absorbing curiosity as to all testamentary dispositions.
"She may, and she may not; there's no prophesying about wills.

I'm pleased to say I can generally foretell when folks is going to die, having done a good bit of sick-nursing in my time afore I married Hankey; but as to foretelling how they're going to leave their money, I can no more do it than the babe unborn; nor nobody can, as ever I heard tell on." "That's so, Mrs.Hankey.Wills seem to me to have been invented by the devil for the special upsetting of the corpse's memory.

Why, some of the peaceablest folks as I've ever known--folks as wouldn't have scared a lady-cow in their lifetime--have left wills as have sent all their relations to the right-about, ready to bite one another's noses off.
Bateson often says to me, 'Kezia,' he says, 'call no man honest till his will's read.' And I'll be bound he's in the right.

Still, it would be hard to see Miss Elisabeth begging her bread after the way she's been brought up, and Miss Farringdon would never have the conscience to let her do it." "Folks leave their consciences behind with their bodies," said Mrs.
Hankey; "and I've lived long enough to be surprised at nothing where wills are concerned." "That is quite true," replied Mrs.Bateson.

"Now take Miss Anne, for instance: she seemed so set on Miss Elisabeth that you'd have thought she'd have left her a trifle; but not she! All she had went to her sister, Miss Maria, who'd got quite enough already.