“He doesn't look quite a gentleman, does he? He is a ship's mate, isn't he?”
“Yes, but it isn't that; father cannot bear those Southdown Road people. A lot of young men live there—quite as good as ourselves, no doubt, but they are all so poor, and father thinks of nothing but money. And Sally meets them. When she goes out driving in the cart she picks them up, and they go off together. Father doesn't know any of them, and he says they laugh at him when he goes to the station in the morning. 'Tisn't true, it is only his imagination; but I can quite well understand his feelings. You know Sally won't give way in anything. Once she ran into the kitchen, and told cook to put back the dinner, so that she might run down the slonk to finish her conversation with him. Of course father was mad at that, coming home tired from the City, and finding that his dinner had been put back. You saw the way they went on at lunch, sitting close together.”
“We were all sitting close together.”
“Yes, but not like they were. And all that nonsense with their napkins under the table. If you didn't see it, so much the better. I thought everybody saw it. I wish Sally wouldn't do it. Father, as you know, has a lot of money to leave, and if she did really go too far, I fear he would cut her off.”
“But she never would go too far.”
“No, I don't think so; I am sure Sally wouldn't do anything that was really wrong, but she is very imprudent.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don't know that I ought to tell you.”
“I promise not to tell any one—you know you can trust me.”
“Well, she brings people up to her room.”