The profits were small, but the squire, who had known her husband, charged but a nominal rent for the cottage; and this was more than paid by the fruit trees in the garden, which also supplied her with potatoes and vegetables, so that she managed to support her boy and herself in tolerable comfort.
She herself had been the daughter of a tradesman in Lewes, and many wondered that she did not return to her father, upon her husband's death.

But her home had not been a comfortable one, before her marriage; for her father had taken a second wife, and she did not get on well with her stepmother.

She thought, therefore, that anything would be better than returning with her boy to a home where, to the mistress at least, she would be most unwelcome.
She had, as a girl, received an education which raised her somewhat above the other villagers of Tipping; and of an evening she was in the habit of helping Reuben with his lessons, and trying to correct the broadness of dialect which he picked up from the other boys.
She was an active and bustling woman, managed her little shop well, and kept the garden, with Reuben's assistance, in excellent order.
Mrs.Ellison had, at her first arrival in the village three years before, done much to give her a good start, by ordering that all articles of use for the house, in which she dealt, should be purchased of her; and she highly approved of the energy and independence of the young widow.

But lately there had been an estrangement between the squire's wife and the village shopkeeper.
Mrs.Ellison, whose husband owned all the houses in the village, as well as the land surrounding it, was accustomed to speak her mind very freely to the wives of the villagers.

She was kindness itself, in cases of illness or distress; and her kitchen supplied soups, jellies, and nourishing food to all who required it; but in return, Mrs.Ellison expected her lectures on waste, untidiness, and mismanagement to be listened to with respect and reverence.
She was, then, at once surprised and displeased when, two or three months before, having spoken sharply to Mrs.Whitney as to the alleged delinquencies of Reuben, she found herself decidedly, though not disrespectfully, replied to.
"The other boys are always set against my Reuben," Mrs.Whitney said, "because he is a stranger in the village, and has no father; and whatever is done, they throw it on to him.