The Woodlanders

"He will soon go away, no doubt."

"I don't think so." Grace did not say "Why?" and Grammer hesitated. At

last she went on: "Don't tell your father or mother, miss, if I let you

know a secret."

Grace gave the required promise.

"Well, he talks of buying me; so he won't go away just yet."

"Buying you!--how?"

"Not my soul--my body, when I'm dead. One day when I was there

cleaning, he said, 'Grammer, you've a large brain--a very large organ

of brain,' he said. 'A woman's is usually four ounces less than a

man's; but yours is man's size.' Well, then--hee, hee!--after he'd

flattered me a bit like that, he said he'd give me ten pounds to have

me as a natomy after my death. Well, knowing I'd no chick nor chiel

left, and nobody with any interest in me, I thought, faith, if I can be

of any use to my fellow-creatures after I'm gone they are welcome to my

services; so I said I'd think it over, and would most likely agree and

take the ten pounds. Now this is a secret, miss, between us two. The

money would be very useful to me; and I see no harm in it."

"Of course there's no harm. But oh, Grammer, how can you think to do

it? I wish you hadn't told me."

"I wish I hadn't--if you don't like to know it, miss. But you needn't

mind. Lord--hee, hee!--I shall keep him waiting many a year yet, bless

ye!"

"I hope you will, I am sure."

The girl thereupon fell into such deep reflection that conversation

languished, and Grammer Oliver, taking her candle, wished Miss Melbury

good-night. The latter's eyes rested on the distant glimmer, around

which she allowed her reasoning fancy to play in vague eddies that

shaped the doings of the philosopher behind that light on the lines of

intelligence just received. It was strange to her to come back from

the world to Little Hintock and find in one of its nooks, like a

tropical plant in a hedgerow, a nucleus of advanced ideas and practices

which had nothing in common with the life around. Chemical

experiments, anatomical projects, and metaphysical conceptions had

found a strange home here.

Thus she remained thinking, the imagined pursuits of the man behind the

light intermingling with conjectural sketches of his personality, till

her eyes fell together with their own heaviness, and she slept.