Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/54

40 dryly. "'Rose,' then, has gone over to the chemist's for the Doctor."

"How jolly of her!" Tony exclaimed. "She's a tremendous comfort."

Mrs. Beever committed herself to no opinion on this point, but it was doubtless on account of the continuity of the question that she presently asked: "Who's this person who's coming to-day to marry her?"

"A very good fellow, I believe—and 'rising': a clerk in some Eastern house."

"And why hasn't he come sooner?"

"Because he has been at Hong Kong, or some such place, trying hard to pick up an income. " [sic]He's 'poor but pushing,' she says. They've no means but her own two hundred."

"Two hundred a year? That's quite enough for them!" Mrs. Beever opined.

"Then you had better tell him so!" laughed Tony.

"I hope you'll back me up!" she returned; after which, before he had time to speak, she broke out with irrelevance: "How is it she knows what Julia wanted to say to you?"