Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/312

 me something that wants sewing, a really hard bit, something that’ll break needles. Yes, that’ll do. Where’s Mrs. Todd’s thimble? Now we’re all going to be comfortable, and we’ll have a good talk.”

Pennyloaf found the dark thoughts slip away insensibly. And she talked, she talked,—where was there such a talker as Pennyloaf now-a-days, when she once began?

Mr. Byass was not very willing, after all, to give up his country travelling. That his departure on that business befell at a moment of domestic quarrel was merely chance; secretly he had made the arrangement with his firm some weeks before. The penitence which affected him upon Jane’s appeal could not be of abiding result; for, like all married men at a certain point of their lives, he felt heartily tired of home and wished to see the world a little. Hanover Street heard endless discussions of the point, between Sam and Bessie, between Bessie and Jane, between Jane and Sam, between all three together. And the upshot was, that Mr. Byass gained his point. For a time he would go on country journeys.