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Ever since Jenny Measom left us she has written to me and I have written to her. Some time ago, when I was not very well, the doctor said that I wanted a change, and so I wrote to Jenny, and said that perhaps I was going to the seaside, and she might not hear from me till I came home again. Two days afterwards I got such a nice letter back saying that she and her husband would be very angry if I didn’t come and stay with them. It would do me quite as much good as the seaside and more, and her husband, being a doctor, if I was out of sorts could make me up all manner of nice things to take. Of course this was a joke, but the invitation wasn’t, and I went. And I was very glad that I did, for they made quite a fuss with me, and I couldn’t have been treated better if I had been a duchess.
They have the loveliest little place, in a nice country town, where Mr. Draycott is established as a doctor, and is doing wonderfully well. Quite a lovely home it is, and they are so happy. And Jenny has her baby and her mother with her to help her, and to keep her company when the doctor is out on his rounds.
The people about the place of course, don’t know when they were married, as it has been kept quite secret. Even Mr. Draycott’s father thinks they were married secretly before he left London for Paris and met with that terrible adventure. Old Mr. Draycott has been over once from Paris, and Jenny says that he fell quite in love with her before he left, and said that his son was a lucky dog. Wasn’t it nice of him? Poor old Mr. Measom died very soon after the wedding; but he died very happy, knowing his daughter was comfortably settled. Poor old gentleman! it was the best thing perhaps, for he had become quite childish.
When I left to come back again to the ‘Stretford Arms,’ I was quite another woman. My cheeks were quite fat and rosy again, and Harry, when he met me at the station, pretended not to know me, but came up and said, “I beg your pardon, miss, but have you seen a pale young woman named Mary Jane anywhere about?”
The big goose! I gave him a kiss before all the railway porters, who wouldn’t look the other way, and I said, “No, I haven’t, and I hope she won’t see me or she mightn’t like me kissing her husband.”
Before I left I told Jenny and her husband that I should insist on their coming and staying for a week at our hotel as our guests, and they have promised that they will. When I asked them, Jenny looked up, with a twinkle in her eye, and the old saucy look on her face, and she said, “I’ll come; but you must promise not to be cross with Mr. Beckett if anybody calls me ‘Tommy,’ won’t you?”
Dear old “Tommy!” Oh, how glad I am that I didn’t let her go away through my nasty jealous temper! Who knows if things would have turned out so happily as they did if I hadn’t made it up with her and asked her to stay on at the ‘Stretford Arms.’
After Jenny left we had a barmaid, who——
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