“Oh, no, no, not for the world. I am not fit for any company, least of all for that of a light-hearted girl. Yet I thank you for the kind thought,” replied Eudora.
“Well, then, dear, since you are too heavy-hearted to be soothed by anything lively, you must try to interest yourself in something serious—anything to take your mind off from brooding over your own troubles,” said the landlady, and taking a folded newspaper from her pocket, she added:
“Now here, here’s this morning’s Times as I’ve been and borrowed from the library at the corner, o’ purpose to read the true account of this horrible poisoning case up in the North! Lawk! only to think of it, my dear—a whole family p’isoned by one young girl, and she their own orphan niece as they fotched over from Indy, and did so much for! But they’ve got her, that’s a comfort! they’ve got her safe enough! She’ll never get off! To think of any young girl being of such a born devil and coming for to be hung at last. Lawk! it do make my blood run cold.”
“But how do you know that she poisoned the family?” asked Eudora, in a faltering voice, and with a shudder that she could not control.
“Lawk! dear, it’s all as clear as a sunshiny noonday. Here, read it for yourself. I see my landlord coming across the street towards the house, and he’s a-coming after his money, which, thanks to Mr. Miller’s liberality, I have got all ready for him.” And so saying, the landlady put the Times into the hands of her panic-stricken lodger and went away down-stairs and into her shop, where she found her surly landlord waiting.
“Well, mum,” began the latter, turning a contemptuous glance around the little shop, “I have come to tell you that I will not wait another day! There are now two quarters’ rent due, and if the money is not forthcoming I intend to sell you out. You needn’t tell me any more about lodgers that can’t pay; if you will keep paupers in the house you must take the consequence.”
“Mr. Grubbins,” said the landlady, going behind her counter with a bustling air of self-confidence, “luck is like a pendulum as sways first to the right and then to the left, and so on backwards and forwards. And if I have one lodger as can’t pay all at once, poor gentleman, I have another as pays like a princess! You see the Lord hasn’t forgot me and my thirteen orphans. So, if you please, Mr. Grubbins, write me a receipt for a half year’s rent; for I mean to pay you all, and get out of your debt, though I mayn’t have five shillings left.”
Mr. Grubbins stared in astonishment, and then, with but little abatement of his severity, wrote out the receipt, while Mrs. Corder laid two five-pound notes and five sovereigns in gold down upon the counter.
“Be more punctual for the future, and don’t let one quarter run into another, and then, maybe, you’ll keep out of trouble,” said Mr. Grubbins, for he did not believe in the continuous prosperity of a poor widow with thirteen children, even with Providence to remember her and them.
And so Mr. Grubbins relieved the little shop of his oppressive presence.