Nevertheless, she too had a good heart if a rough hand, and,
though eccentric almost to insanity, as one so often finds with people
living out of the line and influence of public opinion, yet was as sound
at the core as she was rude and odd in the husk.
She was a small woman, lean, wrinkled, and with a curious mixture of
primness and slovenliness in her dress. She wore a false front, which
she called a topknot, the small, crimped, deep-brown mohair curls of
which were bound about her forehead with a bit of black velvet ribbon,
while gray hairs straggled from underneath to make the patent sham more
transparent still; and over her topknot she wore a rusty black cap that
enclosed the keen monkeyish face like a ruff. Her every-day gown was one
of coarse brown camlet, any number of years old, darned and patched till
it was like a Joseph's coat; and the Rob Roy tartan shawl which she
pinned across her bosom hid a state of dilapidation which even she did
not care should be seen. She wore a black stuff apron full of fine tones
from fruit-stains and fire-scorchings; and she took snuff.
She was reputed to be worth a mort of money, and she had saved a goodly
sum. It would have been more had she had the courage to invest it; but
she had a profound distrust of all financial speculations--had not
Emmanuel lost his share by playing at knucklebones with it in the
City?--and she was not the fool to follow my leader into the mire.
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