human
Peaky and spindlin', remarked Mrs. Yellam.
gpt
Is her mother alive?
human
The pore soul gave up the ghost when Fancy was born.
gpt
That's very bad, Alferd.
human
Might have been worse, Mother.
gpt
Eh?
human
She might have died before Fancy was born, and then there'd be one pretty maid the less in Nether-Applewhite to-day.
gpt
Gracious! She do seem to find favour with 'ee. 'Tis wicked to wager money on't, but I'll lay a pound o' good butter, Alferd, that you disremember Mr. Hamlin's text this marning.
human
You'd win that bet, Mother. I'm bothered and moithered to death.
gpt
About this white-faced maid, Alferd?
human
About my old van. About the horses, too. I'm far-seeing, Mother. Get that from you, I reckon. Yesterday, in Salisbury, I did take upon myself the very hateful job of looking at a motor-'bus.
gpt
What be us coming to, Alferd!
human
I don't know. But I'm always one to make a guess. My son, maybe, 'll be a carrier, like his father and granfer before him; likely as not he'll want to sell the motor-'bus and buy a flying-machine. We all march on and on.
gpt
Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
human
but such marching implied a leisurely procession, not excess speed. She hated motors, because they rushed by, covering the foot-passengers with dust or mud according to the season. She had, too, an inchoate aversion to all machinery, because it minimised and mocked at human labour, which she respected inordinately. Machinery had driven able-bodied men overseas to return no more. She had seen certain cunning handicrafts wither and die. For instance, how many thatchers were left? Machinery, so she believed, had raised the cost of living; machinery--the ubiquitous locomotive--linked together disastrously town and country, filling the minds of maids with what she called