It seemed like yesterday, and yet
seventeen years and more had gone by. And all these years were now a sort
of a blur in her mind--a dream, the connecting links of which were gone,
and she stood face to face with her old mistress in the old room.
"You've had a cold journey, Esther; you'd like some tea?"
"Oh, don't trouble, ma'am."
"It's no trouble; I should like some myself. The fire's out in the
kitchen. We can boil the kettle here."
They went through the baize door into the long passage. Mrs. Barfield told
Esther where was the pantry, the kitchen, and the larder. Esther answered
that she remembered quite well, and it seemed to her not a little strange
that she should know these things. Mrs. Barfield said--
"So you haven't forgotten Woodview, Esther?"
"No, ma'am. It seems like yesterday.... But I'm afraid the damp has got
into the kitchen, ma'am, the range is that neglected----"
"Ah, Woodview isn't what it was."
Mrs. Barfield told how she had buried her husband in the old village
church. She had taken her daughter to Egypt; she had dwindled there till
there was little more than a skeleton to lay in the grave.
"Yes, ma'am, I know how it takes them, inch by inch. My husband died of
consumption."
They sat talking for hours. One thing led to another and Esther gradually
told Mrs.
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