“What maggot has the child got into its head now?” was her observation; “who hasn't got a husband?”
“Why, mamma.”
“Don't talk nonsense, Master Paul; you know your mamma has got a husband.”
“No, she ain't.”
“And don't contradict. Your mamma's husband is your papa, who lives in London.”
“What's the good of him!”
Mrs. Fursey's reply appeared to me to be unnecessarily vehement.
“You wicked child, you; where's your commandments? Your father is in London working hard to earn money to keep you in idleness, and you sit there and say 'What's the good of him!' I'd be ashamed to be such an ungrateful little brat.”
I had not meant to be ungrateful. My words were but the repetition of a conversation I had overheard the day before between my mother and my aunt.
Had said my aunt: “There she goes, moping again. Drat me if ever I saw such a thing to mope as a woman.”