“Oh, Belinda!” I exclaimed, grasping at once what this meant, “I am glad. That is why you joined the furniture club?”
She nodded, pleased at my intelligence, and added complacently—
“An’ I’ve jined the sewin’ class, so’s I ken myke my own trossax.”
I fully approved of this, and inquired as to when the marriage was to take place.
She pursed up her lips and shook her head solemnly, as she replied—
“Not yet awhile. I’ve no fancy fer startin’ too soon an’ bein’ brought up with a jerk, an’ I wants ter myke sure of a comferble plyce ter begin with,” which showed me what I had always known, namely, that Belinda Ann was in many ways above her class.
“I means ter ’ave a room ter myself any’ow,” she went on. “Why, ef you’ll berlieve me”—warming with her subject—“down Spitalfields wy there was once four families as ’ad one room atween ’em. They each ’ad one corner, an’ one man lived in the middle, but dear, they didn’t mind, an’ got on well enough till the man in the middle took in a lodger, an’ then there was a row ’cos they sed that was jest a little too much.”
I heartily agreed, though the story was not new to me any more than it will be to you.
We parted, having made an appointment for the following week, so a few days afterwards found me under her guidance, trying to find out something about the clubs.
As we walked she showed me notices in various shop-windows of “Clubs held here,” but the one we finally entered was of a very humble description, and the proprietress, a wizened little hunchback, looked suspiciously at me and was most reluctant, even at Belinda Ann’s request, to explain the mode of procedure.