We must submit ourselves to the Almighty's will," they would add with reverence.

They couldn't tell why He had afflicted her, but they prayed Him to be merciful to her in her latter end.
It was in old parson Green's time, the man they all swore by, that they talked thus; but when parson Craik came, they learned some new words, and instead of accepting trouble with the religious acquiescence of the ignorant, they began to wonder and doubt, and presently to offend their rivals by their fine language.

"Mysterious, indeed," they would say, "is the ways of Providence." In the meantime the poor old woman who for so many years was the object of their speculations and their sympathy, lived in all quietness and humbleness at one end of her long house, and on fine Sundays edified the congregation by coming to church.

Not, however, on foot; her great age made that too much an exertion for her.

She was drawn by her one old man-servant in a chair on wheels, her granddaughter and her grandson's widow walking beside her, and her little great-grandson, Peter, who was supposed to be her heir, bringing up the rear.
Old Madam Melcombe, as the villagers called her.