“Lord bless you, mum, it don't matter. If I wasn't listening to her something else worse might be happening. Everything's all the same when it's over.”
Amy had come to us merely as a stop gap, explaining to my mother that she was about to be married and desired only a temporary engagement to bridge over the few weeks between then and the ceremony.
“It's rather unsatisfactory,” had said my mother. “I dislike changes.”
“I can quite understand it, mum,” had replied Amy; “I dislike 'em myself. Only I heard you were in a hurry, and I thought maybe that while you were on the lookout for somebody permanent—”
So on that understanding she came. A month later my mother asked her when she thought the marriage would actually take place.
“Don't think I'm wishing you to go,” explained my mother, “indeed I'd like you to stop. I only want to know in time to make my arrangements.”
“Oh, some time in the spring, I expect,” was Amy's answer.
“Oh!” said my mother, “I understood it was coming off almost immediately.”
Amy appeared shocked.
“I must know a little bit more about him before I go as far as that,” she said.