“An’ yo’ll think no more o’ the owd one now, I reckon,” he said.
Jinny looked from one to the other quickly.
“Two daddies!” she said emphatically, adding after a pause. “Two daddies and no mother—that’s what I’d like.”
“Poor little lass!” said John, with something like a groan. “I reckon thou would; I doubt I can’t blame thee.”
“’Tis settled, then; I can keep her?” cried Joe eagerly.
“Ah,” returned John, backing towards the door, “’tis reet—yo’ can keep her.”
As the door closed behind him, Jinny returned to her big elbow chair, and once more taking possession of it, folded her hands on her lap and announced triumphantly that she was the little missus.
“Bless thy bonny face,” cried Joe, “and so thou art.”
THE RULES O’ THE HOUSE
Jinny Whiteside had kept herself without being beholden to anybody since she found herself an orphan at the age of twenty-eight. She took in washing, she went out charing; during her spare hours she worked in her garden; but her main source of income came from letting her two small spare bedrooms. Her cottage was situated at such a convenient distance from the little wayside station, that the constantly changing porters who earned their living there, invariably became her lodgers.