Christmas Eve was black and bitter. After the lodgers had gone to
bed, Miss Toller and Helen sat by the kitchen fire.
'Oh, Miss, I wish we were at Barton Sluice.'
'What makes you wish it, now?'
'I hate this place and everybody in it, excepting you. I suppose
it's Christmas makes me think of the old farm.'
'I remember you said once that you thought you would like a town.'
'Ah, I said so then. I should love to see them meadows again. The
snow when it melts there doesn't go to dirty, filthy slush as it
does in Brighton. But it's the people here I can't bear. I could
fly at that Poulter and that Goacher at times, no matter if I was
had up for it.'
'You forget what a hard life you had with Mrs. Wootton at the
Hatch.'
'No, I don't forget. She had a rough tongue, but she was one of our
set. She got as good as she gave. She spoke her mind, and I spoke
mine, and there was an end to it. But this lot--they are so stuck-
up and stuck-round. I never saw such folk in our parts--they make
me feel as if I were the dirt under their feet.
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