“And I tell you he dudn’t. He toald me he wur wed, and about his childer, and that dress-up hop-pole of a wife of his’n.”
“And you went walking out wud a married man, for all the Street to see!”
“Why not? There wur no harm done.”
“No harm! I tell you it wurn’t simly.”
“He’d no friends in these parts, and a man liks a woman he can talk to.”
“He’d got his wife, surelye.”
“Not hereabouts. He wur middling sick wud lonesomeness.”
Mrs. Beatup sniffed.
“Well, you can justabout git shut of him now. Your faather and me woan’t have you walking out wud a married man. So maake up your mind to that.”
Ivy muttered something surly and thick—the tears were already in her throat, and pushing past her mother, she ran upstairs.