The old dame was not satisfied. The white linen lappets of her antiquated mutch flapped like a spaniel’s ears as she shook her head.
“Eh, well!” sighed she, opening and shutting a drawer in the counter abstractedly, “you should know best, but both me and Parson Brookes (dead and gone as he is) thought you’d set your mind on th’ lass that rantipollin lad Aspinall snapped up. I hope thah’s not goin’ to wed th’ cousin out o’ spite,” and she looked up in his face, over which a cloud had swept. “It would be the worst day’s work you ever did, either for her or you.”
He had mastered his emotion, and answered cheerfully—
“Make your mind easy, Mrs. Clowes. I am not marrying from any unworthy motive, and I think our prospect of happiness is about the average. I came to ask you, as the oldest friend I have in the town, to be present on the occasion.”
Mrs. Clowes was overpowered.
“What! Mr. Clegg! Me, in my old black stuff gown and mutch, among your grand folk? Nay, nay; I’m too old to don weddin’ garments. But I tell you what”—and her face puckered with pride and pleasure—“you shall have the finest wedding-cake that ever was baked i’ Manchester, and the old woman will mebbe look on the weddin’ from some quiet nook, out o’ the way. It’s a thousand pities Jotty is not alive to marry you?”
“There will be no grand folk, Mrs. Clowes; I am but a poor man struggling upwards, and Miss Chadwick has not had good health of late; so we shall be married very quietly on Wednesday week. Only very near relatives, or old friends are invited.”
Customers interrupted the colloquy. When the shop was clear, she asked where he was going to live after marriage, and was told, with his bride’s parents.
“Eh! but that’s a bad look out. Now, I’ve built some houses in a new street off Oxford Road as they call Rosamund Street, an’ I’ll tell you what, you shall have one to live in at a peppercorn rent, and I’ll lend you the money to furnish it. Young folks are best by themselves.”