Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/22

 of the grate. Assured of his comfort, Mrs. Peckover said she must go and look after certain domestic duties. Her daughter had begun to clean some vegetables that would be cooked for dinner.

“How old may you be, Clem?” Mr. Snowdon inquired genially, when they had been alone together for a few minutes.

“What’s that to you? Guess.”

“Why, let me see; you was not much more than a baby when I went away. You’ll be eighteen or nineteen, I suppose.”

“Yes, I’m nineteen—last sixth of February. Pity you come too late to give me a birthday present, ain’t it?”

“Ah! And who’d have thought you’d have grown up such a beauty! I say, Clem, how many of the young chaps about here have been wanting to marry you, eh?”

“A dozen or two, I dessay,” Clem replied, shrugging her shoulders scornfully. Mr. Snowdon laughed, and then spat into the fire.

“Tell me about some o’ them, will you?