“Now, you don’t know anything of the kind, old girl.”
“Oh, yes, I do, Jo-si-ah. I always feel it whenever he comes anigh one, and if I had a child of my own, and that man had come and wanted to marry her, I’d have cut her up in little pieces and scattered them all about the garden first.”
“Well, then, I suppose I ought to be very, very glad that we never had any little ones, for, though I should be very glad to get rid of you—”
“No, you wouldn’t, Jo-si-ah,” said Mrs Barclay, showing her white teeth.
“Yes, I should, but I shouldn’t have liked to see you hung for murder.”
“Don’t talk like that, Jo-si-ah. It gives me the shivers. That word makes me think about old Lady Teigne, and not being safe in my bed.”
“Stuff and nonsense!”
“It isn’t stuff and nonsense, Jo-si-ah. I declare, ever since that dreadful affair, I never see a bolster without turning cold all down my back; and I feel as if it wasn’t safe to put my head upon my pillow of a night. There: he’s ringing because you’re so long.”
“Then I shall be longer,” growled Barclay, putting a wafer in his mouth.
“How that poor Claire Denville can stop in that house of a night I don’t know.”