"Ay, I am."
"Is she in now?"
The woman looked up and down the street like one afraid, but answered quietly, "Ay, she is."
"I'm given to understand," said Mary, "that she was one of my—that is, Mr. Stepaside's workpeople?"
The woman was silent.
"Is she ill?"
"What's that to yo'?"
To a South country person the woman's attitude might have seemed rude, but a Lancashire man would have regarded her answers to Mary's questions as natural. As I have before stated, there is nothing obsequious in a Lancashire operative's behaviour. They are rough, oft-times to the point of rudeness, although no rudeness is meant. Possibly this woman might have regarded Mary's visit as a piece of impertinence. If a neighbour had come, that neighbour would have been received kindly, but Mary's appearance suggested that she did not belong to the order of people who lived in that street, and there were many who resented anything like what seemed interference.
"But your daughter is not very well, is she?"
"I never said owt o' th' so'ort."