“How good you are!” Meg said.
“Of course it’s ’ard and all that; but I don’t want to make him un’appy and his family set against him—I’d rather sacrifice myself.” Miss Jones cast down her lashes and looked heroic. “I suppose, though, I’ll have a fine piece of work with him when he comes.”
[124]
]Meg had no doubt of it.
“But you will be very firm, won’t you?” she said anxiously. “Remember, you have promised me to leave him quite free—to refuse to be even engaged for at least two years.”
“Oh, I’ll manage him, someway; but I quite expect he will want to shoot either himself or me,” was the dressmaker’s answer, spoken with a certain melancholy enjoyment.
Then Meg shook hands with her warmly, affectionately even—she felt she almost loved her—and took her departure.
“But Pip will never forgive me,” she said to herself, as she walked home again. “Oh, never, never, never!”
[125]
]CHAPTER XI.
A DAY IN SYDNEY.
“To Mr. O’Malley in foreign parts.”
Once a month Martha Tomlinson had a day’s holiday. She generally chose Wednesdays, because, she used to say, if there was any luck flying about in a week, that was the day on which it fell to earth. She certainly had illustrations for her theory that Poppet at least used to think were wonderful. For instance, one Wednesday she had picked up a sixpence with a horseshoe on the side the Queen’s head is generally seen—the omen had struck her as almost good enough to be married on. Another time the young man she “went walking with” had been within an ace of buying a pee-wit hat that was cheap certainly, but was moth-eaten in a place or two. If, now, she had gone on Thursday, it would have been too late to prevent it, and Tuesday it would have been too soon. It was a clear case of luck, there was no doubt.