"'Fanny. Embossed address on her notepaper. That's all.'
"Matilda dropped the letter on the table. 'Well?' she said in a voice that challenged my mother. 'Seems to me that the young woman has struck one of the Right Sort—the one straight man in ten thousand ... seems to have taken care of her almost more than an ordinary husband might've done.... What'r you going to do about it, Martha?'
"Matilda collected herself slowly from the table and leant back in her chair, regarding my mother with an expression of faintly malevolent irony."
§ 5
"I turned from Matilda's quizzical face to my mother's drawn intentness.
"'Say what you like, Matilda, that girl is living in sin.'
"'Even that isn't absolutely proved,' said Matilda.
"'Why should 'E——?' my mother began and stopped.
"'There's such things as feats of generosity,' said Matilda. 'Still——'
"'No,' said my mother. 'We don't want 'er 'elp. I'd be ashamed to take it. While she lives with that man——'