After cards were
over--and on Lovatt's account play ceased at ten o'clock--they would
discuss Bursley and Bursley folk with a shrewd sagacity and an intimate
and complete knowledge of circumstance not to be found in combination
anywhere outside a small industrial town. To listen to Sneyd and Mrs
Peake, when each sought to distance the other in tracing a genealogy,
was to learn the history of a whole community and the secret springs of
the actions which constituted its evolution.
"Haven't you any news for me?" asked Peake, during a pause in the talk.
At the same moment the door opened and Mrs Lovatt entered. "Eh, Auntie
Lovatt," he went on, greeting her, "we'd given ye up." Mrs Lovatt
usually visited the Peakes on Saturday evenings, but she came later than
her husband.
"Eh, but I was bound to come and see you to-night, Uncle Peake, after
your visit to the great city. Well, you're looking bonny." She shook
hands with him warmly, her face beaming goodwill, and then she kissed
her half-sister and Ella, and told Sneyd that she had seen him that
morning in the market-place.
Mrs Peake and Mrs Lovatt differed remarkably in character and
appearance, though this did not prevent them from being passionately
attached to one another.
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