“There! That makes all the difference. Doesn’t it, Mrs. Jebb?” said Andy eagerly, forgetting to be dignified. “I say, shake hands and make it up. Jimmy, shake hands with Mrs. Jebb to start with.”
“Won’t. Hate her. She’s got yeller teef like old Towzer.”
“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Simpson, changing all in a minute from the fighting woman to the careful mother. “Jimmy mustn’t talk like that. Jimmy must beg the lady’s pardon.”
“Won’t,” said that gentleman truculently.
“Jimmy must do as he’s told,” said Mrs. Simpson, then, grasping the pudgy little hand firmly, she held it out to the housekeeper.
“I’m sure I’ve no wish——” began Mrs. Jebb, with trembling stateliness, when Andy cast aside the mantle of the senior curate, grabbed Mrs. Jebb’s hand in his own, and pushed the bony fingers of his lady-cook-housekeeper towards Jimmy.
“I say,” he exclaimed boyishly, “you can’t refuse to shake hands with a little chap like that!”
Mrs. Jebb felt the touch of the firm, young fingers on her wrist, weakened, advanced a step, finally ‘eye-cornered’ Andy with a tremulous smile and waggled once the fat hand of Master Simpson.
“I’m sure,” she said, “I’ve no wish to be un-neighbourly, Mrs. Simpson. It was just seeing you there on your knees rubbing the sideboard front when I never expected to see anything but the cat or Mr. Deane. I ought to be able to enter into a widow’s feelings if anybody ever could. With Mr. Jebb I was not merely a wife, I was an obsession.”
“With all my wordly goods I thee endow, of course,” quoted Mrs. Simpson vaguely, in whose mind the words possession and obsession had somehow run together and produced a blurred impression of Mrs. Jebb’s meaning. But she saw Andy was anxious for peace, and gratitude for the sideboard gradually overcoming her anger, she wished to do her part.