groan, and what had afterwards passed, and how she had obtained leave for the remains to be placed in that sweet, fresh, empty storeroom of the mill from which they had just accompanied them to the churchyard, and how the last requests had been religiously observed.
“I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself,” said Lizzie. “I should not have wanted the will; but I should not have had the power, without our managing partner.”
“Surely not the Jew who received us?” said Mrs. Milvey.
(“My dear,” observed her husband in parenthesis, “why not?”)
“The gentleman certainly is a Jew,” said Lizzie, “and the lady, his wife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to their notice by a Jew. But I think there cannot be kinder people in the world.”
“But suppose they try to convert you!” suggested Mrs. Milvey, bristling in her good little way, as a clergyman’s wife.
“To do what, ma’am?” asked Lizzie, with a modest smile.
“To make you change your religion,” said Mrs. Milvey.
Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. “They have never asked me what my religion is. They asked me what my story was, and I told them. They asked me to be industrious and faithful, and I promised to be so. They most willingly and cheerfully do their duty to all of us who are employed here, and we try to do ours to them. Indeed they do much more than their duty to us, for they are wonderfully mindful of us in many ways.”
“It is easy to see you’re a favourite, my dear,” said little Mrs. Milvey, not quite pleased.
“It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not,” returned Lizzie, “for I have been already raised to a place of confidence here. But that