Mrs Lovatt was small, and rather plain; content
to be her husband's wife, she had no activities beyond her own home. Mrs
Peake was tall, and strikingly handsome in spite of her fifty years,
with a brilliant complexion and hair still raven black; her energy was
exhaustless, and her spirit indomitable; she was the moving force of the
Wesleyan Sunday School, and there was not a man in England who could
have driven her against her will. She had a fortune of her own. Enoch
Lovatt treated her with the respect due to an equal who had more than
once proved herself capable of insisting on independence and equal
rights in the most pugnacious manner.
"Well, auntie," said Peake, "I've won eleven and fourpence to-night, and
my wife's collared it all from me." He laughed with glee.
"Eh, you should be ashamed!" said Mrs Lovatt, embracing the company in a
glance of reproof which rested last on Enoch Lovatt. She was a
Methodist of the strictest, and her husband happened to be chapel
steward. "If I had my way with those cards I'd soon play with them; I'd
play with them at the back of the fire. Now you were asking for news
when I came in, Uncle Peake.
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