"I'm not well dressed enuf, I spose?—I'm not fit society for sich a nice young gal, I spose?—I'm to be turned off as if I was a beggar, instead of the woman of property which I am, I spose?"
"What do you want?" repeated Mattie.
"And I was your poor mother's friend, and trusted her when nobody else would, and gave her a bed to die on comforbly when there wasn't a mag to be made out of her. And I was your friend, though that's something to turn your nose up at, ain't it?"
"You were kind in your way, perhaps—I cannot say, I don't know; I don't wish to remember the past any more. Will you tell me what you want, or go away?"
"And you won't come into the parler?"
"No."
"It's the curiest story as you ever did hear. There's been a man asking arter you down our court, and asking arter me, and finding me out at last, and nearly coming to a bargain with me, when, cus my greediness, I lost him."
"Asking after me?"
"Ah! you may well open those black eyes of yourn—he made me stare, I can tell you. He walks one day into my house, as if it belonged to him, and says, 'Are you Mrs. Watts?' 'Yes,' I says. 'Do you remember Mrs. Gray?' he says. 'Not by name,' I says. 'She was a tramp,' he says, 'and died here.' 'Oh!' I says, 'if it's her you mean, whose name I never knowed or cared about, died here, she did.' 'And the child?' he says. 'Mattie you mean,' I says. 'Ah! Mattie,' he says. And then I says, thinking it was a dodge, my dear, for the perlice are up to all manner of tricks, and you mightn't have been going on the square, and been wanted, then I says, 'And will you obleege me with your reasons for all these questions of a 'spectable and hard-working woman?' I says. 'My name's Gray,' he says, 'and I'm Mattie's father.'"
"Is this true?—oh! is it really true?"