“Why don’t people write their names plain?” demanded his sister-in-law, impatiently. “It’s got a printed name up in the corner; perhaps that’s it. Well, I never did—I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels.”
“You’re sitting down, that’s what you’re a-doing,” said the carpenter, regarding her somewhat unfavourably.
“Perhaps it’s a take-in,” said Mrs. Pullen, her lips trembling. “I’ve heard o’ such things. If it is, I shall never get over it—never.”
“Get—over—what?” asked the carpenter.
“It don’t look like a take-in,” soliloquized Mrs. Pullen, “and I shouldn’t think anybody’d go to all that trouble and spend a penny to take in a poor thing like me.”
Mr. Tidger, throwing politeness to the winds, leaped forward, and snatching the letter from her, read it with feverish haste, tempered by a defective education.
“It’s a take-in, Ann,” he said, his voice trembling; “it must be.”
“What is?” asked Mrs. Tidger, impatiently.
“Looks like it,” said Mrs. Pullen, feebly.
“What is it?” screamed Mrs. Tidger, wrought beyond all endurance.