222

“Jt seems curious, miss, as you should care to
see it,” said Mrs. Ramsay, as the girl perched
herself on one end of the table, still holding Trot in
her arms, “but it’s a casulty job, is butter-making,
for them as don’t know the rights of it.”

“Tt doesn’t look difficult,” said Winnie as she
/watched the proceedings “ but I daresay I should
make a horrid mess of it if I tried. Butter always
sticks to my fingers if it gets on them, why doesn’t
it to yours ?”

“ Because I scald my hands, miss, before I touches
it.”

“ Scald your hands ?”

** Ah, and the butter-tub, and the things we does
the pats with and all—they goes into pretty well
boiling water, and I puts my hands in when it ain’t
far off that; if it ain’t as hot as hot the butter
would stick on ever so.”

“But doesn’t it hurt you ?”

“Oh, we're used to it,” said Mrs. Ramsay, to
whom forty years of butter-making had given
plenty of practice.

“Do you know, Mrs. Ramsay, that I never had an
idea how butter was made before? I knew it came
from milk or cream somehow—but I did not know
the way it was done, any more than how sugar is
made.”

“To think of that now!” said Mrs. Ramsay, to
whom it seemed a marvellous thing that people
|should be so ignorant. ‘To think of that now!
Why, I did suppose every body knowed them
things.”

“No,” said Winnie, shaking her head, “I am
not sure that I had ever seen a cow milked. One
| doesn’t see cows in London, or in Dudley either.”

‘*‘London’s a terrible big place, ’ve heard say,”
replied Mrs. Ramsay, ‘but there ain’t many in
Beechley as has been there. Emma Lowe, the
eldest daughter of the woman as lives up there,” and
she nodded her head through the window in the
direction of a little cottage whose thatched roof and
red chimney could be seen a little above the hedge,
“she went to London along with her missus from
Birmingham, and thought ever such a deal of her-
self for having went, but it didn’t do her much
good to my thinking.”

“ Didn't it ?”

“She got so terrible set up there was no bearing
her. I’d no patience with the gell coming home toa
| bit ofa place like that there, and trailing down to

| like any lady.”

Winnie laughed, “Don’t you think Birmingham
| might have taught her that, not London. I know
the girls at Dudley dress very grandly.”

“Ah, it’s the way with most as gets into the |

towns round here; they spends all their money on

WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

decent under things for themselves. There’s Emma
might help her mother ever so, for she’s taking
good wages, and there’s four little ones at home
earning nothing, besides them as is to work.”

“Ts that Mrs. Lowe who comes here to wash?”

“ Yes, miss, a poor miserable body she looks, too,
don’t she? But she’s good to work, and washes
things as they’d ought to be washed, swilling ’em
well through lots of waters, and not rubbing and
soaping and swilling all in one tubful, like some
I knows on, just to save the trouble of getting a
drop more water.”

“Ts that why your things look so white ?” said
Winnie, putting her handkerchief down beside a
cloth which lay upon the table—“ just see the
difference | ”

“ Well, miss, it’s partly that; but there’s a deal in
good air to dry ’em. It ain’t to be thought as folks
coming out of the Black Country can have their linen
like ourn, but there’s a deal in the washing for all
that,” said Mrs. Ramsay, with an air of superior
knowledge.

Trot had all this time been gravely watching the
golden heap of butter, as it was worked and pressed
by the old woman’s clean brown fingers.

“ Me like that,’ she remarked. e

“Bless your heart, to be sure you do,” said Mrs.
Ramsay, breaking off a morsel and putting it in the
little outstretched hand. ‘‘There was never a
child yet as didn’t like good butter.”

“You musn’t be in the way, Trot, or I shall
have to carry you into the parlour,” said Winnie.

“No,” said Trot seriously, ‘‘me good.”

They made a pretty picture, those three in the
large low kitchen, with the broad oak staircase and
banisters rising just beyond the end of the dresser
where Winnie Corsellis sat with the child. She had
on a blue print dress, that all-overish blue, which
comes of narrow lines of white and colour lying
close together ; a broad band of black velvet was
passed round her throat just below the collar, from
which hung a gold locket (George Ferrars’ gift), and
a little black silk apron, with a dainty trimming of
lace, was fastened round her waist. Trot sat upon
her lap in a frock exactly like her aunt’s dress, with
white pinafore and short white socks; one fat
dimpled hand held its morsel of butter, the other
clasped Winnie’s pretty fingers. For Winnie had
very pretty hands and feet, and beautiful brown

| eyes, with long lashes, a little darker than the brown
church on Sunday with her parasol and her flowers,

hair which was folded into coils round her small
shapely head. Trot had bright blue eyes that
matched her frock, and curly golden hair. Any one

| would have called the child pretty, but people

differed about Winnie; and Mrs. Ramsay, as she
stood by the table, in her wide apron, and white

| close cap, with her grey hair put back beneath
their finery, never sends a bit home, or even buys |

the border, and her withered gentle face looking