In such attire she
wished to be allowed to trot about to and fro from her greenhouse to her
potting-shed, watering, pruning, and syringing her plants. These plants
were dearer than all things to her except her children; she seemed,
indeed, to treat them as if they were children, and with the sun pouring
through the glass down on her back she would sit freeing them from
devouring insects all the day long. She would carry can after can of water
up the long path and never complain of fatigue. She broke into complaint
only when Miss Mary forgot to feed her pets, of which she had a great
number--rabbits, and cats, and rooks, and all the work devolved upon her.
She could not see these poor dumb creatures hungry, and would trudge to
the stables, coming back laden with trusses of hay. But it was sometimes
more than a pair of hands could do, and she would send Esther with scraps
of meat and bread and milk to the unfortunate rooks that Mary had so
unmercifully forgotten. "I'll have no more pets," she'd say, "Miss Mary
won't look after them, and all the trouble falls upon me. See these poor
cats, how they come mewing round my skirts." She loved to expatiate on her
inexhaustible affection for dumb animals, and she continued an anecdotal
discourse till, suddenly wearying of it, she would break off and speak to
Esther about Barnstaple and the Brethren.
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