Page:The Delectable Duchy.djvu/140

 to me--a pleasant-faced old woman of seventy, in a muslin cap, red turnover, and grey gown hitched very high. She wore no shoes inside her cottage, but went about in a pair of coarse worsted stockings on all days except the very rawest, when the chill of the lime-ash floor struck into her bones.

"May I wait a few minutes till the weather lifts?" I asked.

She smiled and seemed almost grateful.

"You'm kindly welcome, be sure: that's if you don't mind the Vaccination."

I suppose that my face expressed some wonder: for she went on, shaking my dripping hat and hanging it on a nail by the fire--

"Doctor Rodda'll be comin' in half-an-hour's time. 'Tis district Vaccination to-day, and he always inoculates here, 'tis so handy."

She nodded her head at half a dozen deal chairs and a form arrayed round the wall under a row of sacred texts and tradesmen's almanacks.

"There'll be nine to-day, as I makes it out. I counted 'em up several times last night."

It was evidently a great day in her eyes.