“She was right decent, was Tibbie—eh, and that bonny an’ all! Seems to me, looking back, she was much the same as I was myself ... I don’t set much by other folks’ barns, as a general rule, but if ever I’d had a lass, I’d have liked her to be like yours.”
Again Emma laughed her ladylike laugh, and again Martha Jane flushed and winced. Mrs. Clapham’s eyes climbed slowly and dully until they reached the intruder’s face.
“You mean kindly, I don’t doubt,” she said in that hard, sullen voice which seemed so strange from her kindly mouth, “but I don’t know as I’m wanting your sympathy, all the same.”
Martha Jane wilted a moment at that, and then flamed in the next instant. In spite of her exhilaration, she, too, was obviously on edge. The tears came into her eyes, but she flung them out angrily with a toss of her head.
“I’m right sorry, I’m sure,” she said in an injured tone, “to have said I was sorry where it wasn’t wanted! There’s some folks, all the same, as appreciates feeling when they comes across it. Yon time his lordship lost his grandmother, he was glad enough of a pleasant word.”
There was a fresh demonstration of scorn at this, though not from Emma, who merely smiled. The usual glove thrown down evoked the usual answer from Mrs. James.
“You and your lordships!” she scoffed, from the huddle against the wall. “Seems to me you think o’ nowt else! Anyway, best-looking man at his lordship’s grandmother’s funeral wasn’t his lordship. Everybody said it was Mr. Baines.”
“Baines!” Diverted in spite of herself, Martha Jane swung round as if on a pivot. “What, he wasn’t in t’ same street!”
“Like enough—seeing he was streets ahead. A perfect picture he was, wi’ his buttonhole and frock-coat!”
“A barber’s block, that’s about it, and near about as much sense!” Martha Jane had burst into the room a Bacchanalian indeed, but at least with some laudable purpose hidden behind. Now she was nothing better than a virulent shrew. “And a buttonhole at a burying!” she concluded, with scorn. “Real nasty, I call that!”