Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/53

 cautiously. "But now she's coom over, he is trying to back out."

May sobbed. "He's my cousin."

"Well, then, be glad you're shut of him," said Mrs. Bye. "I don't approve of cousins marryin'. Nature never intended that we should overdo relations that way, and if we do, likely as not, the children'll come underdone."

"You'd think marriage was a pie to hear you talk," said Delight.

"It's a pie you'd better keep your finger out of, till you're a bit more sensible."

"Me?" cried Delight. "I'm as sensible as can be. It'd take more than a jilting to upset me."

Charley thumped on the wall. "Missus! Missus!" he called. "Be you going to gadabout all night?"

"Please don't tell the other girls anything of this," implored May. "I couldn't bear it."

"Never a breath," said Mrs. Bye. "And you put your cousin out of your mind. There's other nice young fellers here that 'ud like nothing better than to walk out with a smart-looking girl like you." She whisked out with her long stride to her own room, exactly as though it were an oven and Charley a cake burning.

"I wonder what relation they were," mused Delight.

"Who?"

"Why, cook and Charley. Look at Queenie. She's a bit queer. No roof to her mouth, I mean, and all."

"Oh, you silly! I've got a brother whose toes are all webbed jus' like a duck's and my parents was no more relation than 'Enery the Eighth and the Queen of Sheba."

Delight persisted. "Well, anyway, May, since Albert is your cousin—"

"E's" 'E's [sic] not my cousin, but I've promised 'im to s'y 'e is for the time being."