"Wouldn't you rather be with me, Becky?" I said, smiling at her.
"'Tis cruel to talk so," she cried, sobbing. "How can I be with 'ee? What you get from Lawyer Vetch won't keep two--if you get anything at all. They say his nephew has ruined him--the wretch! Indeed, if you ask me, I say you'll get more from Mr. Huggins than from the lawyer. You'll have enough to do to keep yourself, without being saddled with a poor, forlorn old widow woman."
"But won't you come? I am going to live with Mr. Vetch."
"Live with the devil!" she screamed, lifting her hands with a gesture of utter despair. "It is downright wicked of you, Humphrey--and your poor father not a week in the grave. Sure the end of the world be coming, when the leopard and the kid shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox."
"And donkeys won't bray, I suppose," says I. "There, I don't mean you, Becky, though you are an old goose. Mr. Vetch wants a housekeeper, and you are to come with me and mother us both, he says, and he'll give you twenty pounds a year."
The good creature's look sent me into a fit of laughter. She stared solemnly at me for a while through her tears, saying never a word. Then the drooping corners of her mouth lifted; she folded her hands across her plump person and said:
"Your father only gave me eighteen, Humphrey: are you sure 'twas twenty the lawyer said?"
"Quite sure. The devil isn't as black as he's painted, eh Becky?"
"Ah! you never know a man till yon've lived with him. Pennyquick was--but there, he's gone, poor soul, as we all must, and tis ill work saying anything against one as can't answer ye back: not that Pennyquick was ever much of a hand at that, poor soul!"
I heard no more vilification of Mr. Vetch. Becky recovered her old activity with surprising ease, and went about the house collecting such personal belongings of her own and mine as the lawyer told us we might remove without question. He himself came to the house on our last day, and made an inventory of the articles we removed, and having seen these safely bestowed in a pannier on the back of Ben Ivimey's son, who came to carry them away, we shut the doors of the old place, Mr. Vetch pocketed the keys, and we set off for the town.