“Two,” replied the widow. “Two childern, Mrs. Cross—a boy an’ a girl.”
“You haven’t ever seen them, of course?”
“E-es, my dear,” responded Mrs. Chaffey, with a superior air. “I do see ’em two or three times a year. I bain’t one for to bear malice. When her ’usband do drive her over on a Bank Holiday I could never have the ’eart for to shut my door i’ their faces.”
“Drive over!” exclaimed Mrs. Cross. “They must be free wi’ their dibs to go throwin’ ’em about on car-hire.”
“It don’t cost them nothin’,” said Mrs. Chaffey hastily. “’Tis their own trap.”
Mrs. Cross gasped.
“They keeps a trap! They must be pretty well off.”
Seeing that this remark was evidently unpleasing to her new friend, she obsequiously hastened to allude to what she felt sure must be a genuine grievance.
“An’ not a bit grateful, as you was a-sayin’ jist now! She don’t remember, I shouldn’t think, all what you’ve a-done for her. She don’t never make you no return I d’ ’low. She don’t never give ’ee nothin’, do she?”
“Nothin’ to speak of,” retorted the other, peevishly, and closed her mouth with a snap.