Her unusually quick sense of
the ridiculous led her to play with all the common-places of everyday
life, whether as regarded persons or things; but she never played with
its serious duties or responsibilities, nor did she ever turn individuals
into ridicule. With all her neighbours in the village she vas on
friendly, though not on intimate, terms. She took a kindly interest in
all their proceedings, and liked to hear about them. They often served
for her amusement; but it was her own nonsense that gave zest to the
gossip. She was as far as possible from being censorious or satirical.
She never abused them or _quizzed_ them--_that_ was the word of the day;
an ugly word, now obsolete; and the ugly practice which it expressed is
much less prevalent now than it was then. The laugh which she
occasionally raised was by imagining for her neighbours, as she was
equally ready to imagine for her friends or herself, impossible
contingencies, or by relating in prose or verse some trifling anecdote
coloured to her own fancy, or in writing a fictitious history of what
they were supposed to have said or done, which could deceive nobody.
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