Page:The Delectable Duchy.djvu/193

 ad used to draw dace out of his mill-pond. With some difficulty he recalled my features, and by decrees let out the story of his life during the last ten years.

He and his wife had fought along in their new house, hiding their discomfort from each other, and abiding the slow degrees by which their dwelling should change into a home. But before that change was worked, the woman fell under a paralytic stroke, and their savings, on which they had just contrived to live, threatened to be swallowed up by the doctor's bill. After considering long, the miller wrote off to his only son, a mechanic in the Plymouth Dockyard, and explained the case. This son was a man of forty or thereabouts, was married, and had a long family. He could not afford to take the invalid into his house for nothing; but his daughters would look after their grandmother and she should have good medical care as well, if she came on a small allowance.

"So the only thing to be done, sir, was for my old woman to go."

"And you--?"

"Oh, I went into the 'House.' You see, there wasn' enough for both, liv