‘But I thought you said you’d given it all up?’
‘That’s my own money, what was settled on me. I don’t see what good it was to me; I never had a penny of it to handle. Now they want to get all the rest out of us. How are we to pay back the money that’s spent and gone, I’d like to know? Willis says they’ll just have to get it if they can. And here’s Dick going on at me because we don’t go into lodgings! I don’t leave the house before I’m obliged, I know that much. We may as well be comfortable as long as we can.
‘The mean thing, that Adela!’ she pursued after a pause. ‘She was to have married Mr. Eldon, and broke it off when she found he wasn’t going to be as rich as she thought; then she caught hold of Dick. I should like to have seen her face when she found that will!—I wish it had been me!’
Alice laughed unpleasantly. Her mother regarded her with an air of curious inquiry, then murmured:
‘Dick and she did the honest thing. I’ll say so much for them.’
‘I’ll be even with Mrs. Adela yet,’ pursued Alice, disregarding the remark. ‘She wouldn’t speak for me, but she’s spoken for herself, no fear. She and her airs!’
There was silence; then Mrs. Mutimer said:
‘I’ve let the top bedroom for four-and-six.’
‘’Arry’s room? What’s he going to do then?’
‘He’ll have to sleep on the chair-bedstead, here in the kitchen. That is, if I have him in the ‘ouse at all. And I don’t know yet as I shall.’