"No, it ain't right; married ladies ought not to go short, but we always do. Boards and Organization ladies think as men keeps us. Granny says they most always did in her day, and rich people does still, I suppose, but it ain't the fashion down our street, and it falls 'eavy on the woman what with earning short money and being most always confined. My son says as it's the laws as is old, and ought to be swept somewhere into limbo, not as I understands it, being no scholard."
"Here we are at last! Ain't it a joyful sight to see the 'eavens and the earth, and no 'ouses in between; it always feels like Sunday in the country."
My little son is my true lover-- It seems no time ago since he was born. I know he will be quick and happy to discover The world of other women and leave me forlorn! Sometimes I think that I'll be scarcely human If I can brook his chosen woman!
"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" wailed the old lady, burying her face in her pocket-handkerchief; "to think as I've lived to see the day! I've always lived with 'Orace, and I've always prayed that the Lord would take me unto Himself before I was left alone with my grey hairs. A poor, pretty thing she is, too, with a pair of blue eyes and frizzled yellow curls, dressed out beyond her station in cheap indecencies of lace showing her neck and arms, as no proper-minded girl should. And she won't have me to live with them--I who have never been parted from 'Orace not one day since he was born thirty year ago come Sunday. Yes, I've got Esther; she's away in service: she's Johnson's child; I've buried two husbands, both of them railway men and both of them dying violent deaths. Johnson was an engine-driver on the Great Northern, and he smashed 'isself to a jelly in that accident near York nigh on forty year ago now. I said I'd never marry on the line again, hating accidents and blood about the place; however, it's a bit lonesome being a widow when you're young, and Thompson courted me so faithful at last I gave in. He was 'Orace's father, a guard on the Midland, and he went to step on his van after the train was off, as is the habit of guards--none of them ever getting killed as I ever heard of except Thompson, who must needs miss his footing and fall on the line, a-smashing of his skull fearful. Yes; I drew two prizes in the matrimonial market--good, steady men, as always came 'ome punctual and looked after the jennies in the window-boxes, and played with the children; but, as Mrs. Wells says, them is the sort as gets killed. If a woman gets 'old on a brute she may be quite sure he'll come safe through all perils both on land and water, and live to torture several unfortunate women into their graves. 'Orace was a toddling babe then, and Esther just ten years older. Fortunately, I was a good hand at the waistcoat-making, and so I managed to keep the 'ome going; 'Orace was always very clever, and he got a scholarship and worked 'isself up as an electrical engineer. One of the ladies got Esther a place at Copt Hall, Northamptonshire, when she was only thirteen, and she's done well ever since, being cook now to Lady Mannering at thirty-six pounds a year. No, she's never got married, Esther--a chap she walked out with wasn't as faithful as he should have been, a-carrying on with another at the same time; and Esther took on awful, I believe, though she's one as holds her tongue, is Esther--at all events, she's never had naught to do with chaps since. She's a good girl, is Esther; but 'Orace and me were always together, and he always was such a one to sit at home with me working at his wires and currents and a-taking me to see all the exhibitions, and explaining to me about the positives and negatives and the volts and ampts; he never went after girls, and I always hoped as he would never fall in love with mortal woman, only with a current; so it knocked all the heart out of me when he took to staying out in the evenings, and then brought the girl in one night as his future wife. 'Orace was the prettiest baby you ever see'd, and when he used to sit on my knee, with his head all over golden curls, like a picture-book, I used to hate to think that somewhere a girl-child was growing up to take him from me--and to think it's come now, just when I thought I was safe and he no more likely to marry than the Pope of Rome, being close on thirty, and falling in love for the first time! And she won't have me to live with them!