"And why for should Milly Boon take Richard Bewes?" asked Jack.
"First, because he loves her with all his heart, I believe, and it would be a natural thing, them being the finest young man and woman in the place; and second, because everything points for it," declared Mrs. Cobley. "I wouldn't go so far as to say Milly wouldn't have come to it herself given patience in the man, for he's a fine, ornamental chap and would make a husband for a woman to be proud of. Besides, Milly has got nought but herself to offer. She's dependent on Jane for the clothes on her back, so Bewes would be a lot higher than she might ever have hoped to rise. She ain't the only pebble on the beach even as a good-looker."
"She can't take him if she don't love him, however," said Jack.
But Mrs. Cobley didn't set much store on that.
"Oh, yes, she could," the old woman replied. "Where there's respect, love often follows. And there's Jane to be remembered. Jane's been a good aunt to Milly and, in my opinion, the girl ought to see her duty and her pleasure go together, and wed young Bewes."
"And, if she don't?" asked Mr. Cobley.
"Then Jane's in the street and it will be her death, because at her age you can't transplant her. You hook her out of that nice little house and she'll wilt away like a flower and very soon die of it."
Jack said no more, for he seldom wasted words, but he turned the matter over in his mind and took occasion to see Jane Pedlar a few days after and find out if what his mother had said was true.
"Because, ma'am," he said; "such things sound a thought contrary to religion and justice in my mind."
"They be," admitted Jane. "They be clean contrary to justice and religion both; but justice and religion are got so weak in Little Silver, that nothing don't surprise me."