In spite of Peggy’s prophecy that Susan’s life should not seem long, it did seem wearisome and endless, as the years slowly uncoiled their monotonous¹ circles. To be sure, she might have made change for herself, but she did not care to do it. It was, indeed, more than “not caring,” which merely implies a certain degree of vis inerti? to be subdued³ before an object can be attained⁴, and that the object itself does not seem to be of sufficient importance to call out the requisite⁵ energy. On the contrary, Susan exerted herself to avoid change and variety. She had a morbid⁶ dread⁷ of new faces, which originated in her desire to keep poor dead Willie’s state a profound secret. She had a contempt for new customs; and, indeed, her old ways prospered⁸ so well under her active hand and vigilant⁹ eye, that it was difficult to know how they could be improved upon. She was regularly present in Coniston market with the best butter and the earliest chickens of the season. Those were the common farm produce that every farmer’s wife about had to sell; but Susan, after she had disposed of the more feminine articles, turned to on the man’s side. A better judge of a horse or cow there was not in all the country round. Yorkshire itself might have attempted to jockey her, and would have failed. Her corn was sound and clean; her potatoes well preserved to the latest spring. People began to talk of the hoards¹¹ of money Susan Dixon must have laid up somewhere; and one young ne’er-do-weel of a farmer’s son undertook to make love to the woman of forty, who looked fifty-five, if a day. He made up to her by opening a gate on the road-path home, as she was riding on a bare-backed horse, her purchase not an hour ago. She was off before him, refusing his civility; but the remounting was not so easy, and rather than fail she did not choose to attempt it. She walked, and he walked alongside, improving his opportunity, which, as he vainly thought, had been consciously granted to him. As they drew near

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