Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/40

 drop off sometimes! I ham so glad you just come in!”

Jane had tried so many forms of encouragement, of consolation, on previous occasions that she knew not how to repeat herself. She was ashamed to speak words which sounded so hollow and profitless. This silence was only too significant to Pennyloaf, and in a moment she exclaimed with querulous energy:

“I know what’ll be the hend of it! I’ll go an’ do like mother does,—I will! I will! I’ll put my ring away, an’ I’ll go an’ sit all night in the public-'ouse! It’s what all the others does, an’ I’ll do the same. I often feel I’m a fool to go on like this. I don’t know what I live for. P'r'aps he’ll be sorry when I get run in like mother.”

“Don’t talk like that, Pennyloaf!” cried Jane, stamping her foot. (It was odd how completely difference of character had reversed their natural relations to each other; Pennyloaf was the child, Jane the mature woman.) “You know better, and you’ve no