"I have not heard lately from Captain Cheffington. He is a bad correspondent. But we shall soon be obliged to communicate with each other. May is seventeen, and various arrangements will have to be made about her future."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Simpson, clasping her hands. "You don't mean to say that May isn't to remain with you?"
"That will depend on what is agreed on in the family. May must take her place in the world as Miss Cheffington, you know, and not as my grand-daughter."
The Simpsons exchanged a glance of surprise. This was the first time they had heard Mrs. Dobbs assume any such position for her grandchild. Sebastian was inclined to resist her doing so now. But something in Mrs. Dobbs's manner checked him from expressing this feeling. It is generally found easier to criticize our friends' shortcomings when we are free from the disturbing element of their presence. The short remainder of the evening was passed in talking of other things. But on their way home Mr. and Mrs. Simpson discussed this new turn of affairs with some eagerness.
The organist considered that the notion of the Hadlows not being good enough company for the Dormer-Smiths was preposterous; and he feared that Mrs. Dobbs was giving herself airs. In reply to his wife's observations that Mrs. Dobbs was a "dear old soul," he pointed out that, dear and good though she might be, yet her husband had kept an ironmonger's shop, and publicly sold hardware therein behind his counter, to the knowledge of all Oldchester. This retort depended for its cogency on the understanding of an ellipsis; which, however, Mrs. Simpson was perfectly able to supply, for she answered immediately—
"Oh, I'm sure, Bassy, Mrs. Dobbs would never undervalue your position as a professional man. She knows very well that the Arts rank superior to trade."
On the other hand, when Mrs. Simpson proceeded to opine that if May were taken up by her father's family she would become quite a grand personage, Mr. Simpson declared, with a good deal of heat, that for his part he thought Mrs. Dobbs quite as good any day as the Cheffingtons, about whom nothing certain was known in Oldchester except that they were shabby in their dealings and "stuck-up" in their pretensions.
Mr. Weatherhead lingered behind the organist and his wife, to say a word to Mrs. Dobbs after their departure.
"I can tell you one thing, Sarah; what you said about May will be all over Oldchester by Monday."
"So I guess."