“Oh, yes. You know what ’Amlet says, as your poor father used to make jokes about, and call breeches; but I say, isn’t she a milk-and-water chit beside you, my gal? Didn’t you feel as if you ’ated her?”
“No, mother,” said Cora thoughtfully. “She’s different to what I expected. I don’t think she’ll live.”
“Don’t talk like that. Now, let’s see what about your noo dress.”
“And yours, mother?”
“Of course. And feathers.”
And as this conversation went on, Stuart Denville and his daughter Claire walked homeward, the latter with the gloom deepening, so it seemed, over her young life, the former with the six crisp notes riding lightly in his pocket, and the load of misery and shame growing heavier day by day.