“Oh, that!” A pause; and she added, with a touch of her natural impulsiveness, “I wouldn’t marry him if he was hung in diamonds, nor he me; he is afraid of his life of me.”
“Why, what have you been doing to frighten him?”
“Always saying and doing the wrong thing. You see, I’m so ignorant, and when people make signs at me, ’tis worse I get.”
“What do you call the wrong thing? Can you give me a specimen?”
“Well, talking to Lady Boxhill of wigs, and age, and to Mrs. Fullerton of divorce, and to Sir Harry Coxford of debt and people owing money. I mean no harm, God knows! but I frighten people, and I make them hate me”; and her lip trembled, and her eyes were brimming.
“I am sure no one could do that,” he protested.
“Oh, but they can! I’m such a clumsy fool. And faix, your own mother wasn’t too fond of me! All the same, I hope she is getting her health?”
“Yes; but I’m sorry to say Barker is giving her a lot of trouble.”
“Well, she has him as she reared him! I suppose about the big lump of a girl that’s barmaid over in Killarney?”
“He has married her.”