With regard to them and their affairs she was
what they often angrily accused her of being--a busy-body and even a
mischief-maker. Her lively mind caused her to take a great interest--too
great an interest--in the private affairs of people some of whom she
disliked, and even despised. She was also not as scrupulous as she might
have been in repeating unsavoury gossip. Yet, even so, so substantially
good a woman was she, that what some people called Miss Pendarth's
interfering ways had more than once brought about a reconciliation
between husband and wife, or between an old-fashioned mother and a
rebellious daughter. It was hopeless to try to keep from her the news of
any local quarrel, love-affair, or money trouble--somehow or other she
always found out everything she was likely to want to know--and she
almost always wanted to know everything.
There was another fact about Miss Pendarth, and one which much
contributed to her importance even with the people who disliked and
feared her: she was the only inhabitant of the remote Surrey village who
was in touch with the world of fashion and society--who knew people whose
"pictures are in the papers." Now and again, though more and more rarely
as time went on, she would leave Rose Cottage to take part in some big
family gathering of the important and prosperous clan to which, in spite
of her own lack of means, she yet belonged, and with whom she kept in
touch.
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