"
"Who says so?"
"Why, all the folks. Lord bless the girl! do 'ee think folks use their
eyes without usin' their tongues? An' I wish it had come about, for
you'd ha' kept en straight. But he treated you bad, and he treated me
bad, tho' he won't find no profit o' that. You'm my sister's child,
'Lizabeth," he rambled on; "an' what house-room you've had you've fairly
earned--not but what you was welcome: an' if I thought as there was harm
done, I'd curse him 'pon my deathbed, I would."
"You be quiet!"
She turned from the window and cowed him with angry grey eyes.
Her figure was tall and meagre; her face that of a woman well over
thirty--once comely, but worn over-much, and prematurely hardened.
The voice had hardened with it, perhaps. The old man, who had risen on
his elbow in an access of passion, was taken with a fit of coughing, and
sank back upon the pillows.
"There's no call to be niffy," he apologised at last. "I was on'y
thinkin' of how you'd manage when I'm dead an' gone."
"I reckon I'll shift."
She drew a chair towards the bed and sat beside him. He seemed drowsy,
and after a while stretched out an arm over the coverlet and fell
asleep. 'Lizabeth took his hand, and sat there listlessly regarding the
still shadows on the wall.
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