“Well, it do, ma’am, an’ that’s a fact. Why, it seems only yesterday they was ’ere—’im and ’is ma, an’ Miss Cynthia. Lor’, an’ she’s married too! Well, reely, I find it ’ard to believe, ma’am.”

“She has a son—a dear little chap,” Elizabeth said.

“Has she reely, ma’am? Well, I do declare! An’ how’s Mrs. Ramsay, if I may ask?”

“Very well, I believe. I—I haven’t seen her for some little time.”

“Ah, well, she were what I call a real lady. Not one of your C3 ladies. I remember she were always losing something, an’ the nurse an’ Master Stephen—I should say Mr. Ramsay—was always runnin’ round after her. Well, I must say she did make me laugh.” Then Mrs Benson would draw a deep breath and start off again.

“And now Mr. Stephen—I should say Mr. Ramsay—has got a wife of his own! I read ’is book what came out a year ago. If I may pass the remark I should say that it was a very pretty tale, I’m shore. When I think of ’im sitting in this very room with ’is ma—well, he couldn’t ’ave bin moreen twelve—lookin’ after ’er, quite the man, as I says to Mrs. Ramsay—well, reely, it does make you think, don’t it?”

Elizabeth agreed that it did.

“I took quite a fancy to ’im, I must say. Well, ’e ’ad such a way with him an’ all. I’m the man o’ the fam’ly, ’e says to me. I got to look after me mother and Cynthia. Well, I thought, if that isn’t touching! An’ so ’es married. Will ’e be coming down ’ere at all, ma’am, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

“Er—no,” Elizabeth said. “I—I’ve come—by myself, on a—rest-cure.”

That always aroused Mrs. Benson’s sympathy and interest. She told Elizabeth all about her own ailments, and how her pore ’usband used to suffer somethink cruel, ’e did, from ’is inside. A floating kidney, ’e ’ad, and she could assure Elizabeth it weren’t no joke, because you couldn’t ever tell where it ’ud get to next, as one might say.

Elizabeth usually terminated these gruesome recollections by going out for a walk. Nothing else would stop Mrs. Benson, once she had got into the swing of her narration.

She remained at Torquay for a month, leading a life of indolence and much thought. Then loneliness came to her, and she longed for companionship. Whose companionship she did not know. Not Miss Arden’s, certainly, or her father’s.