“Yes,” continues Mrs. Garth, in her melancholy soliloquy, “I fret mysel' the lee-lang day.”
“She's a deal over slape and smooth,” whispered Liza again. “What's it all about? There's something in the wind, mind me.”
“The good dear old creatur; and there's no knowin' now if she's provided for; there's no knowin' it, I say, is there?”
To this appeal neither of the girls showed any disposition to respond. Mrs. Garth thereupon applied the apron once more to her eye, and continued: “Who wad have thought she could have been brought down so low, she as held her head so high.”
“So she did, did she! Never heard on it,” Liza broke in.
Not noticing the interruption, Mrs. Garth continued: “And now, who knows but she may come down lower yet—who knows but she may?”
Still failing to gain a response to her gloomy prognostications, Mrs. Garth replied to her own inquiry.
“None on us knows, I reckon! And what a down-come it wad be for her, poor creatur!”
“She's sticking to that subject like a cockelty burr,” said Liza, not troubling this time to speak beneath her breath. “What ever does she mean by it?”
Rotha was beginning to feel concerned on the same score, so she said: “Mrs. Ray, poor soul, is not likely to come to a worse pass while she has two sons to take care of her.”