“Indeed I have,” pleaded Miss Lillycrop; “my little servant—”
“What, the infant who opened the door to me?”
“Yes, Tottie Bones; she is obliged to stay at nights with me just now, owing to her mother, poor thing, being under the necessity of shutting up her house while she goes to look after a drunken husband, who has forsaken her.”
“Hah!” exclaimed Miss Stivergill, giving a nervous pull at her left glove, which produced a wide rent between the wrist and the thumb. “I wonder why women marry!”
“Don’t you think it’s a sort of—of—unavoidable necessity?” suggested Miss Lillycrop, with a faint smile.
“Not at all, my dear, not at all. I have avoided it. So have you. If I had my way, I’d put a stop to marriage altogether, and bring this miserable world to an abrupt close.—But little Bones is no difficulty: we’ll take her along with us.”
“But, dear Maria—”
“Well, what further objections, Lilly?”
“Tottie has charge of a baby, and—”
“What! one baby in charge of another?”