But she WAS very proud -- so proud that she would have died rather than let the Spencervale people , among whom she had queened it in her youth , suspect how poor she was and to what straits was sometimes reduced . She much preferred to have them think her miserly and odd -- a queer old recluse who never went anywhere , even to church , and who paid the smallest subscription to the minister 's salary of anyone in the congregation . `` And her just rolling in wealth ! '' they said indignantly . `` Well , she did n't get her miserly ways from her parents . THEY were real generous and neighbourly . There never was a finer gentleman than old Doctor Lloyd . He was always doing kindnesses to everybody ; and he had a way of doing them that made you feel as if you was doing the favour , not him . Well , well , let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself if she wants to . If she does n't want our company , she does n't have to suffer it , that 's all . Reckon she is n't none too happy for all her money and pride . '' No , the Old Lady was none too happy , that was unfortunately true . It is not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up with loneliness and emptiness on the spiritual side , and when , on the material side , all you have between you and starvation is the little money your hens bring you in . The Old Lady lived `` away back at the old Lloyd place , '' as it was always called . It was a quaint , low-eaved house , with big chimneys and square windows and with spruces growing thickly all around it . The Old Lady lived there all alone and there were weeks at a time when she never saw a human being except Crooked Jack . What the Old Lady did with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale people could not solve . The children believed she amused herself counting the gold in the big black box under her bed . Spencervale children held the Old Lady in mortal terror ; some of them -- the `` Spencer Road '' fry -- believed she was a witch ; all of them would run if , when wandering about the woods in search of berries or spruce gum , they saw at a distance the spare , upright form of the Old Lady , gathering sticks for her fire . Mary Moore was the only one who was quite sure she was not a witch .
`` Witches are always ugly , '' she XXXXX decisively , `` and Old Lady Lloyd is n't ugly .
amused called feel gathering growing lived reduced said suffer wants