“Mary, you are very useful. You work so hard—you are always working.”
“Little things!” said Mary, sighing. “Little things! Things with my hands. But a woman is not all hands.” She hitched the blankets once more, and lay back on the pillow. “You’d better go to bed. It’s getting late.”
“Good night, Mary; good old Mary! You shall come and stay with me in my house, and I’ll give you a real good time.”
Teresa turned away, eager to make her escape. She did not kiss her sister, for kisses were not frequent in the Mallison family, and the sudden unlocking of Mary’s sealed lips left an effect of strangeness, as if some stranger had taken her place. It was disturbing and disagreeable to realise that Mary could feel! She opened the door softly and was stepping over the threshold when Mary’s voice called in an urgent note. “More confidences!” sighed Teresa to herself, and stood still to listen.
“Did you remember to turn out the hall light?” asked Mary.
Chapter Ten.
News in Chumley.
The news of Teresa Mallison’s engagement provided Chumley with an excitement which was shared equally by every section of the community. Tradesmen discussed it with their assistants, message boys overheard, and took it home in the dinner hour, as an important item of news which mother would be able to bestow on other members of the Coal Club and Mothers’ Meeting. “That fair girl of Mallison’s, she hooked him up at Bagnor! Peignton they call him. Fair chap as drives a dog-cart.” Domestic servants discussed the engagement with the maids next door, and opined that the old Major would be glad to get rid of one of them. Wherever a couple of matrons stood together on the pavement of the High Street, or a cluster of girls stood holding bicycles in the roadway itself, it would have been safe to bet that the subject of discussion was that of the latest engagement.