"Yu did!"
"Mabel," called Mrs Widger. "Go'n ask May Rousdon to kindly step this way."
May Rousdon came.
"Who told yu what yu told Mabel about George, this morning? Did yu make it up?"
"'Twas Lottie told me, Mrs Widger."
"There! if I didn't think.... Don't yu ever say such a wicked thing again! Yu don' know what harm...."
The parlour door was shut fast. A hubbub went on within. After a time, Lottie, weeping, was led out of the house by her sister.
"The lying bitch," Mrs Widger repeated. "I've a-give'd it to her. Making up that tale so pat as if 'twas all true! That's the sort o' thing they used to put about when Tony and me was first married, but I fought 'em down, I did, an' I thought 'twas all stopped long ago. They tried to make out as 'twas me drove George to sea. Nobody can't ever say I haven't luked after Tony's first wife's children so well as I have me own—but they have said it, all the same, an' I've up an' give'd it to 'em 'fore now. Whenever I used to correct the children, they'd only to run out o' the house an' they cude always find someone to listen to 'em and say as I was cruel to 'em and God knows what. One time, when I wasn't very well, I felt I cuden' put up wi' it any longer. But I did. An' here I be, same's ever. Pretty times us used to have, I can tell yu, when we was first married an' some of 'em put my blood up!"
I understand that she cursed several—literally kicked one or two—out of the house; but now when anybody is ill, or anything has to be done, she is the first person to be sent for; and when George said goodbye to her at the station, he wept.
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