Do 'ee see her window yonder, over the ope?"
He was pointing across to the soiled white blind that still looked
blankly over the street, its lower edge caught up at one corner by a
dusty geranium.
"I saw her pull it down."
"Ah, you would if you was lookin' that way. I've a-seed her do 't a
score o' times. Well, when the gout reached Key Pinsent's stomach and
he went off like the snuff of a candle at the age of forty-two, she
was left unprovided, with a son of thirteen to maintain or go 'pon the
parish. She was a Menhennick, tho', from t'other side o' the Duchy--a
very proud family--and didn't mean to dip the knee to nobody, and all
the less because she'd demeaned hersel', to start with, by wedding a
tailor. But Key Pinsent by all allowance was handsome as blazes, and
well-informed up to a point that he read Shakespeare for the mere
pleasure o't.
"Well, she sold up the stock-in-trade an' hired a couple o' rooms--the
self-same rooms you see: and then she ate less 'n a mouse an' took in
needle-work, plain an' fancy: for a lot o' the gentry's wives round
the neighbourhood befriended her--though they had to be sly an' hide
that they meant it for a favour, or she'd ha' snapped their heads off.
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