“Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, then comes Wednesday morning.”
She caught me to her and began dancing with me round the room.
Observed my aunt, who continued steadily to eat bread and butter:
“Just like 'em all. Goes mad with joy. What for? Because she's going to leave a decent house, to live in a poky hole in the East End of London, and keep one servant.”
To my aunt the second person ever remained a grammatical superfluity. Invariably she spoke not to but of a person, throwing out her conversation in the form of commentary. This had the advantage of permitting the party intended to ignore it as mere impersonal philosophy. Seeing it was generally uncomplimentary, most people preferred so to regard it; but my mother had never succeeded in schooling herself to indifference.
“It's not a poky hole,” she replied; “it's an old-fashioned house, near the river.”
“Plaistow marshes!” ejaculated my aunt, “calls it the river!”
“So it is the river,” returned my mother; “the river is the other side of the marshes.”
“Let's hope it will always stop there,” said my aunt.
“And it's got a garden,” continued my mother, ignoring my aunt's last remark; “which is quite an unusual feature in a London house. And it isn't the East End of London; it is a rising suburb. And you won't make me miserable because I am too happy.”