“Oh, there are ways of doing the job! She weren’t killed by any accident—not by fire, nor by water, nor by a street accident—but just she wanted what she couldn’t get.”
“And what was that?”
“Why, the understanding of the sort of man she had married. He is real good is the Professor, downright good at heart, but he wanted a different sort of wife from your mother, some one as could rouse him and take him by the shoulders and shake him. That’s the sort he wanted, and she weren’t the kind. So, you see, she hadn’t enough sunshine, and by-and-by the want of sunshine killed her. Yes, she were killed if ever a woman were killed; yes, that’s it—killed.”
I started to my feet.
“You really are very melancholy, Hannah.”
“And why in the name of fortune should I be merry? What’s to make me merry?”
“Well, we all have to make the best of things. Miss Donnithorne says so.”
“Don’t you mention the name of that hussy to me!”
“Hannah, you have no right to call her that. She is a most sweet, dear, charming woman.”
“Get you out of my kitchen, Dumps!”