"Barber's clerk! Why, he's the Earl of Bermondsey!"
"Who? Lizzie! You don't mean that!"
"I do, it's gospel truth! His name was printed on the card; 'With Mr Jack Smith's compliments' was wrote on the back. Miss Graham told me it was him, she knew his writing directly she set eyes on it. He's been passing himself off as Jack Smith to some girl or other up at our place, and going on no end."
Miss Steele, her face turned away from Lizzie, was drumming on the table with the fingers of her left hand.
"Did you say that he was going to marry Miss Graham?"
"It seems that he as good as promised that he would, but now she's afraid that he'll take up with this other girl what he's been carrying on with."
"What makes her think so?"
"Don't I tell you that he about equal to up and told her so."
Miss Steele was silent.
"Does she think"--there was a tremulous break in her voice--"that he would marry the other girl?"