Then I offered her five per cent. of the lady's fortune, if she would find me a mark with unsettled money. Though she laughed it off, she was not a little scandalized by my levity. The Tough Old Stick has not outlived her memory of romance. Indeed, I think she holds to it all the tighter for her hardheadedness in every-day affairs.
Midway through tea, Straighty crept into the kitchen. "What do yu want?" shouted Grannie Pinn. "Bain't there enough kids yer now?" Straighty stood in the centre of the kitchen, sucking three fingers and looking shyly at me from beneath her tousled tow-coloured hair.
"You've not forgotten me, Straighty?" I asked. "You're not frightened of me, are you?"
"Go an' speak to 'en proper," commanded Grannie Pinn. "Wer's yer manners, Dora?"
"Yu didn' speak to me proper, Grannie Pinn! Wer's yours?"
"Aw, my dear soul! Now du 'ee shut up wi' yer chake!"
Straighty remained sucking her fingers in the middle of the kitchen. She seemed about to cry. Quite suddenly, her eyes brightened. She glided over to me, put her wet fingers round my neck ("Dora!" from Mrs Widger), and gave me a big kiss on the chin. Then she told me all about everything, sitting with her head on my shoulder in the old courting chair.
A tiny little episode, I grant; but very sweet.
"That's your mark?" Grannie Pinn shouted. "You'll hae tu wait for she!"
Straighty is established as my mark, and takes her duties, as she has learnt to conceive them, with amusing seriousness. She will not let me go out through the Square without being told where I am off to, nor let me return in house until I tell her where I have been. At the beginning of every meal we hear her creeping up the passage; see her yellow hair against the door-post. By the end of the meal she has summoned up courage to claim a kiss. "Now be off tu your mother!" says Mrs Widger.