“Why not?” says Cicely, very coldly. “One attends many weddings brought about by more ignoble motives.”
“You will not see me at the ceremony,” replies Lady Jane, more and more incensed.
“I know I shall not, nor any of his relatives. But I do not admire the class prejudice which will keep you all away.”
And she leans over the rail of the Ride and pats the mane of a child’s pony.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Brown, resting her empty basket and her rheumatic limbs for a few minutes on a bench, ponders vainly on the name Mr. Fanshawe gave her. “Mrs. Sockatees,” she repeats to herself. “He can’t think as I’m one to marry agen at my time o’ life. If it hadn’t bin for the children there were a tallow chandler, a warm man too, he was, who would hev bin ready as ready——”
She muses pensively a moment on the charms of the lost tallow chandler who had been sacrificed to her maternal scruples, whilst Cicely Seymour and Lady Jane are walking towards her.
“Let’s sit down here a moment, Cicely,” says Lady Jane. “The children will be back again directly.”
Mrs. Brown rises and curtsies, taking up her basket.
“Don’t get up, my good woman, there’s room enough.”
“Your ’umble servant, ma’am,” says Mrs. Brown, standing erect, her empty basket held before her like a shield of Boadicea; she does not know them by name, but they are possible clients for the wash-tub.