“Yes,” he said. “Been up most of th’ night. Difficult! Difficult!”
“It’s all RIGHT, I hope?”
“Oh yes. Fine child! Fine child! But he put his mother to some trouble, for all that. Nothing fresh?” This time he lifted his eyes to indicate Mr. Baines’s bedroom.
“No,” said Mrs. Baines, with a different expression.
“Keeps cheerful?”
“Yes.”
“Good! A very good morning to you.”
He strode off towards his house, which was lower down the street.
“I hope she’ll turn over a new leaf now,” observed Mrs. Baines to Constance as she closed the door. Constance knew that her mother was referring to the confectioner’s wife; she gathered that the hope was slight in the extreme.
“What did you want to speak to me about, mother?” she asked, as a way out of her delicious confusion.