"Well, you see, miss, he were a twin, and he never did thrive from the very earliest.

But he wasn't a hunchback, not like he is now, at first.

The poor mother died when they was born, and p'raps it were a good thing, for she'd have grieved terrible if she could have seen what he were a-going to grow into.

For she was a lady born and bred, married beneath her, you know.

Nor she didn't have any such life of it either.