Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/231

Rh “I see at once as you was in mournin’, Miss, an’ I’m sorry for it. You’re lookin’ nothing like yourself. I don’t know whether it’s right to upset you with other people’s bothers, but there’s that poor Mrs. Hewett in such a state, and I said as I’d run round, ’cause she seems to think there’s nobody else can come to her help as you can. I always knew as something o’ this kind ‘ud be ‘appenin’."

“But what is it? What has happened?”

Jane felt her energies revive at this appeal for help. It was the best thing that could have befallen, now that she was wearily despondent after yesterday’s suffering.

“Her ’usband’s dead, Miss.”

“Dead?”

“But that ain’t the worst of it. He was took by the perlice last night, which they wanted him for makin’ bad money. I always have said as it’s a cruel thing that; ’cause how can you tell who gets the bad coin, an’ it may be some pore person as can’t afford to lose not a ’apenny. But that’s what he’s been up to, an’ this long time, as it appears.”

In her dialect, which requires so many words for the narration of a simple story, Mrs. Griffin