Laura’s mother belonged to the first category and those who came to her house were mostly her own special friends. They had a few other callers, however, and those Laura thought far more interesting than young Mrs. Massey, who was always making baby’s clothes, although at that time she had no baby (Laura thought afterwards, when a baby arrived for her, it was a lucky coincidence), or Mrs. Hadley, who was always talking about her daughter in service, or Mrs. Finch, who was ‘not too strong’ and had to be given the best seat, nearest the fire. The only interesting thing about her was the little blue bottle of smelling-salts she carried, and that ceased to interest after she had handed it to Laura, telling her to give a good sniff, then laughed when the tears ran down her cheeks. Not at all Laura’s idea of a joke!

She liked Rachel much better. Although never invited, she would drift in sometimes, “just to have a tell,” as she expressed it. Her “tells” were worth hearing, for she knew everything that happened, “and a good lot more, too,” her enemies said. “Ask Rachel,” some one would say with a shrug if the whole of the facts of a happening were not known, and Rachel, when appealed to, if she, too, were not quite sure, would say in her loud, hearty voice: “Well to tell the truth, I haven’t ever quite got to the bottom of that business. But I ‘ull know, that I ‘ull, for I’ll go to th’ fountain-head and ax.” And off she would march with all the good-natured effrontery imaginable to ask Mrs. Beaby if it was “a fac’” that her young Em was leaving her place before her year was up, or Charley’s mother if it was true that he and Nell had quarrelled coming home from church last Sunday, and had they made it up, or were they still “off at hooks,” as they called an estrangement.