Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/19

 on the other hand, she was not very likely to give me an affectionate reception, seeing that I found it inconvenient to keep sending her money for Jane’s keep in the old days. The queer thing is, that everything turned out exactly the opposite of what I had expected. Mrs. Peckover had rather a sour face at first, but after a little talk she began to seem quite glad to see me. She put me into a room, undertook to board me for a while,—till I find work, and I wonder when that’ll be?—and blest if this strapping daughter of hers doesn’t seem to have fallen in love with me from the first go off! As for my girl, I’m told she was carried off by her grandfather, my old dad, three years ago, and where they went nobody knows. Very puzzling all this. How on earth came it that Mrs. Peckover kept the child so long, and didn’t send her to the workhouse? If I’m to believe her, she took a motherly kindness for the poor brat. But that won’t exactly go down with J. J. Snowdon; he’s seen a bit too much in his knocking about the world. Still,—what if I’m making a mistake about