“Is that all?” repeated my aunt. “Why, yes, that’s all, except, ‘And she lived happy ever afterwards.’ Perhaps I may add that of Betsey yet, one of these days. Now, Agnes, you have a wise head. So have you, Trot, in some things, though I can’t compliment you always’; and here my aunt shook her own at me, with an energy peculiar to herself. “What’s to be done? Here’s the cottage, taking one time with another, will produce say seventy pounds a year. I think we may safely put it down at that. Well!—That’s all we’ve got,” said my aunt; with whom it was an idiosyncrasy, as it is with some horses, to stop very short when she appeared to be in a fair way of going on for a long while.
“Then,” said my aunt, after a rest, “there’s Dick. He’s good for a hundred a year, but of course that must be expended on himself. I would sooner send him away, though I know I am the only person who appreciates him, than have him, and not spend his money on himself. How can Trot and I do best, upon our means? What do you say, Agnes?”
“ I say, aunt,” I interposed, “that I must do something!”
“Go for a soldier, do you mean?” returned my aunt, alarmed; “or go to sea? I won’t hear of it. You are to be a proctor. We’re not going to have any knockings on the head in this family, if you please, sir.”
I was about to explain that I was not desirous of introducing that mode of provision into the family, when Agnes inquired if my rooms were held for any long term?
“You come to the point, my dear,” said my aunt. “They are not to be got rid of, for six months at least, unless they could be underlet, and that I don’t believe. The last man died here. Five people out of six would die—of course—of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat. I have a little ready money; and I agree with you, the best thing we can do, is, to live the term out here, and get a bedroom hard by.”