[Child of the 7th Age]

Miz Bella was looking decidedly better than when she'd first been carried inside the evening before. Her unruly curls were firmly pushed behind her ears and held in place by a bright green ribbon. She was wearing a maroon dress with a grey sash tied around her waist, a garment that Cook had kindly deposited on one of the armchairs for her to try on earlier that morning. Although a bit pale, Miz Bella was beginning to regain her strength and good nature. Still, she was extraordinarily slender for a hobbit. It looked as if a good wind could blow her away.

Bella had been seated at the table leafing through a number of books when she head foorsteps approaching in the hallway. She called out a welcome and scurried forward to open the door.

Seeing the large tray of goodies in Cook's hand, she quickly made space for the teapot and toast on the table and pushed a chair over for her guest to sit down. Then she poured two cups of honeyed tea and offered one to Cook. "You are too kind. You really needn't have done all this. I'm quite sure you have plenty of guests and duties to keep you busy. I just don't know what to say. But I at least wanted you to know that I do have money to pay for my room and meals, and that I certainly don't want to push you out of your own parlor."

Before Cook could open her mouth or ask another question, Bella had whisked over to the corner where some of her clothes from the previous night had been haphazardly tossed onto the floor (an occurence that was quite unusual for Cook's parlour). She picked up the ragged skirt out of the pile and began to work at the threads with her nimble fingers. She undid one seam and a number of coins that had been hidden came bouncing out. "There's more where this comes from," assured Bella, pointing to the other clothes on the floor, "but I hope this will hold me for a while."

"Hold you?" piped up Cook. "This will do more than hold you. It should keep you comfortable for quite a while."

"I'm no good with money. It's all looks the same to me," Bella shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "You see most of my life I lived with folk who traded goods in an honest manner but had no coins at all. But before my parents sailed west, when they were still trekking over the wide earth, Mother had several Dwarf friends who taught her how to dig in caves or quarries or abandoned mines and come up with gemstones. She was so good at it they would tease and say she must be a dwarf in disguise. Father had no feel for the thing. He would spend the day hunting and digging and wind up with nothing. But he did learn how to cut and polish the stones that Mother found. She kept one or two for herself but they sold the rest as they passed through the towns. Over the years, they traded for a number of gold pieces that eventually passed to me. I try not to use them except in very tight times."

"But I've talked too much. And I haven't explained the reason I wanted to speak with you. I am thinking of settling here for a bit. I've never lived in the Shire so perhaps it's time for me to come home. I need some honest work so I can make my own way. I have no kinfolk at all, or at least if I do, I don't know them and they have never met me, and probably they would prefer to keep it that way. Ginger said something to me this morning that started me thinking. Father told me about the dame schools: how hobbit ladies would teach the little ones in their homes their basic numbers and letters, and keep them occupied while the parents were off doing other things. I'm wondering if you have a school like that in these parts, or if you think there would be a need for such a place. I would not expect to make a great deal, just enough to keep a roof over my head and a meal or two. The parents could pay me with pennies or some produce from their gardens."

"The only problem is," added Miz Bella with a sigh, "is that I have no burrow of my own. And I have no idea where I could find suitable lodgings for such an undertaking...."