“The master do say she ’ave pulled through wonderful,” allowed the person addressed.
“I ain’t never goin’ to be the same no more,” declared Lucy obstinately, setting her lips tightly, and drawing her skinny little body together with her own petulant movement.
“Ye ’aven’t got no business to talk so,” persisted the post-mistress sharply. “Ye can be what you choose.”
“Well, I ain’t goin’ to be no different, then,” repeated Lucy doggedly. “And I won’t take in no more work, thank ye.”
She tried to rise, but Miss Hearn held her with a mighty eye.
“Woman, do you know as you’re settin’ up yer ’orn against the Lord God A’mighty?” said she solemnly. “And do you know as you’ll be punished h’awful?”
“And if ye don’t do as ye ought by them as ye’ve brought into this sinful vale, ye’ll be punished worse,” decreed Miss Hearn.
“Them above ’as done their worst by me,” said Lucy, with a wan smile. “I don’t h’expec’ no more from them, and they don’t need to h’expec’ no more from me.”
Miss Hearn lifted her hands to heaven in silent horror.
“There, now, ye know ye care for the childer,” said the old housekeeper, from the doorway.
At the kind tones the tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes.
“Not if ye pay yer way as ye should do,” said the post-mistress sententiously. “Folk ’as been kind cos o’ yer misfortune, but ’tain’t in reason they should keep it up. I’ve ’eard tell as ye ’an’t so much as paid for the smart funeral ye thought fit to ’ave a year ago.”
A spark of anger flew to Lucy’s weary eyes.
“Then it’s a lie!” she cried. “If I’d owed for the bread I put into the children’s mouths, I’d ha’ paid for that! And I don’t see what business it is o’ nobody’s neither if I chose to spend my money so as my own ’usbin’ should be nailed down in a coffin better nor some.”
She ended in a whimper, and sat shaking, the tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. But the post-mistress had no mercy. She was incensed at being thus set at naught, and put no guard on her tongue.
“Ye’ll ’ave them children on the parish,” she said, “and a disgrace to ye it’ll be! Ye ’ad wits enough and spunk enough so long as ’e was to do for! Didn’t ye wrong ’em enough whiles ’e was livin’ but what ye must wrong ’em worse now the Lord ’ave mercifully delivered ye from ’im? I’m ashamed of ye, Lucy Wood! And all for the sake o’ a drunken blackguard as couldn’t so much as keep ’isself to ye!”