The
Pater, with his characteristic caution, made it a condition of his help
that a new house should form part of the plan. If the old chapel was
as unworthy of its purpose as Val's descriptions painted it, the
dwelling must have been indeed poverty-stricken. From what I have
gleaned from the natives, both buildings must have surpassed in
meanness our wildest conceptions of them. But more upon that subject
later.
Any account of the chapel-house at Ardmuirland would be incomplete
without some reference to a personage who holds an important position
in the household, second only to that of the master of the house. This
is Penelope Spence, known to the world outside as "Mistress Spence,"
and to Val and myself as "Penny." She was our nurse long ago, and is
now the ruler of the domestic affairs of the chapel-house. A little,
round, white-haired, rosy-faced dumpling of a woman is Penny; an
Englishwoman, too, from the Midlands, where the letter H is reserved by
many persons of her social standing for the sake of special emphasis
only. I find by calculation that she first saw the light at least
seventy years ago, but she is reticent upon that subject. All the
precise information I have ever extracted from her on the point is that
she is not so young as she once was--which is self-evident! But young
or old, she is brisk and active, both in mind and body, still. Such a
devoted old soul, too! She would go to the stake cheerfully for either
of us, but for Val she entertains an almost superstitious reverence,
which would be amusing were it not touching.
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