Mrs. Peckover's voice
was raised in dispute with some one; it proved to be a quarrel with
a female lodger respecting the sum of threepence-farthing, alleged
by the landlady to be owing on some account or other. The two women
had already reached the point of calling each other liar and thief.
Clem, having no acquaintance with the lodger, walked into the
kitchen with an air of contemptuous indifference. The quarrel
continued for another ten minutes--if the head of either had been
suddenly cut off it would assuredly have gone on railing for an
appreciable time--and Clem waited, sitting before the fire. At
last the lodger had departed, and the last note of her virulence
died away.
'And what do _you_ want?' asked Mrs. Peckover, turning sharply upon
her daughter.
'I suppose I can come to see you, can't I?'
'Come to see me! Likely! When did you come last? You're a ungrateful
beast, that's what you are!'
'All right. Go a'ead! Anything else you'd like to call me?'
Mrs. Peckover was hurt by the completeness with which Clem had
established her independence. To do the woman justice, she had been
actuated, in her design of capturing Joseph Snowdon, at least as
much by a wish to establish her daughter satisfactorily as by the
ever-wakeful instinct which bade her seize whenever gain lay near
her clutches.
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