“your unfortnit friend George Roper.
“Ide av carred acros that ther blakbured pi but shoud have ben to late, my good hops is youl injoy the pi with another better nor you ivir could along with me, best furwel wishes to Mary Standish. G R.”
What with the penmanship and what with the spelling, it took old Bumford’s spectacles some time to get through. A thunderbolt could hardly have made more stir than this news. No one spoke, however; and Mr. Bumford folded the letter in silence.
“I always knowed what that there Roper was worth,” broke forth Molly. “He pipe-clayed my best black cloak on the sly one day when I ordered him off the premises. You be better without him, Grizzel, girl—and here’s my hand and wishing you better luck in token of it.”
“Mrs. Dodd was right—them was a change a’ clothes he was a taking with him to Ameriky,” added Mary Standish.
“Roper’s a jail-bird, I should say,” put in old Bumford. “A nice un too.”
“But what can it be that’s went wrong—what is it that have took him off?” wondered the young man, Dicker.
The parson in his surplice had come down the aisle and was standing to listen. Grizzel, in the extremity of mental bitterness and confusion, but striving to put a face of indifference on the matter before the public, gazed around helplessly.
“I’m better without him, as Molly says—and what do I care?” she cried recklessly, her lips quivering. The parson put his hand gravely on her arm.