I 'collect' peasants.
They are my study." "They are not my subjects, but my friends," she said with the same stiffness.
They found Mrs.Jellison having her dinner.

The lively old woman was sitting close against her bit of fire, on her left a small deal table which held her cold potatoes and cold bacon; on her right a tiny window and window-sill whereon lay her coil of "plait" and the simple straw-splitting machine she had just been working.

When Marcella had taken the only other chair the hovel contained, nothing else remained for Wharton but to flatten himself as closely against the door as he might.
"I'm sorry I can't bid yer take a cheer," said Mrs.Jellison to him, "but what yer han't got yer can't give, so I don't trouble my head about nothink." Wharton applauded her with easy politeness, and then gave himself, with folded arms, to examining the cottage while Marcella talked.

It might be ten feet broad, he thought, by six feet in one part and eight feet in another.

The roof was within little more than an inch of his head.