He sighed again, then smiled, and entered the house, Nebbie sedately following. Arrived in his own quiet sanctum, he took off his soft slouched hat and seated himself at his desk with a composed air of patient attention, as the door was opened to admit a matronly- looking lady with a round and florid countenance, clad in a voluminous black gown, and wearing a somewhat aggressive black bonnet, 'tipped' well forward, under which her grey hair was plastered so far back as to be scarcely visible. There was a certain aggrieved dignity about her, and a generally superior tone of self- consciousness even in the curtsey which she dropped respectfully, as she returned Walden's kindly nod and glance.
"Good morning, Mrs. Spruce!"
"Good morning, sir! I trust I see you well, sir?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Spruce, I am very well."
"Which is a mercy indeed!" said Mrs. Spruce fervently; "For we never knows from one day to another whether we may be sound or crippled, considering the diseases which now flies in the air with the dust in the common road, as the papers tell us,--and dust is a thing we cannot prevent, do what we may, for the dust is there by the will of the Almighty, Who made us all out of it."
She paused. John Walden smiled and pointed to a chair, "Won't you sit down, Mrs. Spruce?"
"Thank you kindly, sir!" and Mrs. Spruce accordingly plumped into the seat indicated with evident relief and satisfaction. "I will confess that it is a goodish step to walk on such a warm morning."
"You have come straight from the Manor?" enquired Walden, turning over a few papers on his desk, and wondering within himself when the good woman was going to unburden herself of her business.
"Straight from the Manor, sir, yes,--and such a heat and moil I never felt on any May morning, which is most onwholesome, I am sure. A cold May and a warm June is what I prefers myself,--but when you get the cuckoo and the nightingale clicketin' together in the woods on the First of May, you can look out for quarrelsome weather at Midsummer, leastways so I have heard my mother often say, and she was considered a wise woman in her time, I do assure you!"
Here Mrs. Spruce untied her bonnet-strings and flung them apart,-- she likewise loosened the top button of her collar and heaved a deep sigh. Again the Reverend John smiled, and vaguely balanced a penholder on his fore-finger.