Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. I, 1889.djvu/123

 "There's no call to hide it. That was his name. I've got letters of his writin'. 'J. J. Snowdon' stands at the end, plain enough. And he was your son, was he?"

"He was. But have you any reason to think he's dead?"

"Dead! I never heard as he was. But then I never heard as he was livin' neither. When his wife went, poor thing,—an' it was a chill on the liver, they said; it took her very sudden,—he says to me, 'Mrs. Peckover,' he says, 'I know you for a motherly woman,'—just like that,—see?—'I know you for a motherly woman,' he says, 'an' the idea I have in my 'ed is as I should like to leave Janey in your care, 'cause,' he says, 'I've got work in Birmingham, an' I don't see how I'm to take her with me. Understand me?' he says. 'Oh!' I says,—not feelin' quite sure what I'd ought to do,—see? 'Oh!' I says. 'Yes,' he says; 'an' between you an' me,' he says, 'there won't be no misunderstanding. If you'll keep Janey with you,'—an' she was goin' to school at the time, 'cause