“But what soldiers’ wives, my girl! Trollops and jades many o’ them, married in a moment of drunkenness. Honest women the rest; decent enough, but rough as hemp. And using language, the best o’ them, such as ’ud scald these little ears to hear!...”
A sob broke from him with the bitter cry:
“Mother, you’ll never deny my wife a shelter in the house where my dead father lived with you in love?”
Said Sarah, upright as a ramrod and grim as a steam-hammer:
“I ha’ not gone to say as far.”
With his manhood melting in him to the point of tears as he gave back the faithful look of the dark eyes that wooed his, he stammered:
“God bless you for that!”
“But,” said Sarah, grimmer than ever, for the pink fingers had tapped his lips, and he had pecked a passing kiss on them, “as she has earned her dole of food and her penny of wages with service here, so she shall continue to do. I keep no idlers, nor shall!”
“Nor were asked to, I reckon!”
From the safe rampart of the blue cloth hug Nelly launched with the words a bright eye-dart of defiance. Sarah thundered in reply: