Patten, Mrs.

A rich old lay of Shepperton, tenant of Cross Farm. "Mrs. Patten, a childless old lady, who had got rich chiefly by the negative process of spending nothing . . . She is a pretty little old woman of eighty, with a close cap and tiny flat white curls round her face, as natty and unsoiled and invariable as the waxen image of a little old lady under a glass-case; once a lady's-maid, and married for her beauty. She used to adore her husband, and now she adores her money, cherishing a quiet blood-relation's hatred for her niece, Janet Gibbs, who, she knows, expects a large legacy, and whom she is determined to disappoint." The original of Mrs. Patten is said to have been a Mrs. Hutchings or Hutchins. (Manuscript information; also Olcott, George Eliot, p. 14.)

<em>Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, Scenes of Clerical Life</em>

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