I wonder how it came about
that her strain, after passing through the basest conditions of
modern life, had thus reverted to a type of ancestral exuberance.
'If only he doesn't hear about the old man or the girl from
somebody!' said Mrs. Peckover. 'I've been afraid of it ever since he
come into the 'ouse. There's so many people might tell him. You'll
have to come round him sharp, Clem.'
The mother was dressed as her kind are wont to be on Sunday
morning--that is to say, not dressed at all, but hung about with coarse
garments, her hair in unbeautiful disarray. Clem, on the other hand,
seemed to have devoted much attention to her morning toilet; she
wore a dark dress trimmed with velveteen, and a metal ornament of
primitive taste gleamed amid her hair.
'There ain't no mistake?' she asked, after a pause. 'You're jolly
sure of that?'
'Mistake? What a blessed fool you must be! Didn't they advertise in
the papers for him? Didn't the lawyers themselves say as it was
something to his advantage? Don't you say yourself as Jane says her
grandfather's often spoke about him and wished he could find him?
How can it be a mistake? If it was only Bill's letter we had to go
on, you might talk; but--there, don't be a ijiot!'
'If it turned out as he hadn't nothing,' remarked Clem resolutely,
'I'd leave him, if I was married fifty times.
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