“The wine, Mrs Wilton.”
“But it’s the best port, my dear—not what I give to the poor.”
“And the bit of chicken, Mrs Wilton,” said Jenny, viciously.
“But it isn’t a bit, my dear; it’s a whole one,” said the lady, looking troubled.
“A cold one, left over from last night’s dinner,” said Jenny, half hysterically.
“Indeed, no, my dear,” cried the visitor, appealingly; “it isn’t a cooked one at all, but a nice, young Dorking cockerel from the farm.”
“And a bunch of mouldy grapes,” cried Jenny, passionately, bursting into a fit of sobbing, “just as if I were widow Gee!”
“Why, my dear child, I—oh, I see, I see; you’re only just getting better, and you’re lonely and low, and it makes you feel fractious and cross, and I know. There, there, there, my poor darling! I ought to have come before and seen you, for I always did like to see your pretty, little, merry face, and there, there, there!” she continued, as she knelt by the chair, and in a gentle, motherly way, drew the little, thin invalid to her expansive breast, kissing and fondling and cooing over her, as she rocked her to and fro, using her own scented handkerchief to dry the tears.
“That’s right. Have a good cry, my dear. It will relieve you, and you’ll feel better then. I know myself how peevish it makes one to be ill, with no one to tend and talk to you; but you won’t be angry with me now for bringing you the fruit and wine, for indeed, indeed, they are the best to be had, and do you think I’d be so purse-proud and insulting as to treat you as one of the poor people? No, indeed, my dear, for I don’t mind telling you that I’m only going to be a poor woman myself, for things are to be very sadly altered, and when I come to see you, if I’m to stay here instead of going to the workhouse, there’ll be no carriage, but I shall have to walk.”
“I—I—beg your pardon, Mrs Wilton,” sobbed Jenny. “I say cross things since I have been so ill.”