Chapter 16 - Lizzie Leigh

She resolved to go the very next afternoon, but without telling anyone of her plan. Accordingly, she looked out the Sunday clothes she had never before had the heart to unpack since she came to Manchester, but which she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black mowed bonnet, trimmed with real lace, her scarlet cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she was married, and always spotlessly clean, she set forth on her unauthorised embassy. She knew that Palmer's lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell, and modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o'clock. She stopped to enquire the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer's school would not be loose till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then Four, said she, smiling. Them that want Susan Palmer, wants a kind friend of ours, so we, in a manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I'll wipe the chair so that it shan a dirtier cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they write gradely things again a green field. And you known Susan Palmer long, asked Mrs. Lee, pleased with the admiration of her cloak. Ever since they come to live in our street, our Sally goes to her school. What an sort of a lass is she, for I never seen her. Well, as for looks, I cannot say. It's so long since I first knowed her, that I've clean forgotten what I thought of her then. My master says, he never saw such a smile for Gladden in the heart, but maybe it's not looks you're asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she's just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if he needed it. Or the little childer creeps as close as they can to her. She'll have as many as three or four hanging to her apron all at once. Is she cocky at all? Cocky? Bless you. You never saw a creature less set up in all your life. Her father's cocky enough. No, she's not cocky anyway. You've not heard much of Susan Palmer, I reckon, if you think she's cocky. She's just one to come quietly in and do the very thing most wanted. Little things, maybe, that anyone could do, but the few would think on for another. She'll bring her thimble here and mend up after the childer a night, and she writes all Betty Harker's letters to her grandchild out at service, and she's in nobody's way, and that's a great matter, I take it.