“Well, anyhow there’s a child—a boy—and a fine hale little chap, wi’ a big bald head and a bawlin’ mouth as ever a mother hugged—the darlin’.”
“Well, let the brat lie on the dung heap, you’ll not lift him,” said the lady.
“I’ll not meddle or make. I’m not over-hot about Wyvern. I’d rather have a pocket full o’ money than a house full o’ debts any day; and anyhow there he is, and four bones that’s to walk off with my share o’t.”
“I should have got mourning,” said Bertha Velderkaust, speaking from some hidden train of thought.
“Bah! No one to see you here,” said Harry.
“If I had money or credit, I’d have got it,” she said.
“That’s very affectionate of you,” said Harry; “but why do you dress like that—why do you dress like the lady wi’ the glass slipper, Cinderella, at the king’s ball, in the story book?”
“I should dress, you think, like Cinderella over the coal-scuttle?”
“Well, I wouldn’t set the folk a-laughing when I was in no laughing humour myself—not that it makes much odds, and I do suppose it don’t matter—not it.”
“It does matter something, perhaps, and perhaps nothing; but I know who I am, and I won’t let myself down,” said she. “I don’t want to lose myself among these people; I’ll keep myself distinct. I’m too high to put my foot in the mud.”