Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/237

Rh "But where are you going, Mr. Eames?"

"Well; I haven't just made up my mind as yet. That is, it will depend on what I may do,—on what friends of mine may say down in the country. You'll not think I'm quarrelling with you, Mrs. Roper."

"It's them Lupexes as have done it," said Mrs. Roper, in her deep distress.

"No, indeed, Mrs. Roper, nobody has done it."

"Yes, it is; and I'm not going to blame you, Mr. Eames. They've made the house unfit for any decent young gentleman like you. I've been feeling that all along; but it's hard upon a lone woman like me, isn't it, Mr. Eames?"

"But, Mrs. Roper, the Lupexes have had nothing to do with my going."

"Oh, yes, they have; I understand it all. But what could I do, Mr. Eames? I've been giving them warning every week for the last six months; but the more I give them warning, the more they won't go. Unless I were to send for a policeman, and have a row in the house"

"But I haven't complained of the Lupexes, Mrs. Roper."

"You wouldn't be quitting without any reason, Mr. Eames. You are not going to be married in earnest, are you, Mr. Eames?"

"Not that I know of."

"You may tell me; you may, indeed. I won't say a word,—not to anybody. It hasn't been my fault about Amelia. It hasn't really."

"Who says there's been any fault?"

"I can see, Mr. Eames. Of course it didn't do for me to interfere. And if you had liked her, I will say I believed she'd have made as good a wife as any young man ever took; and she can make a few pounds go farther than most girls. You can understand a mother's feelings; and if there was to be anything, I couldn't spoil it; could I, now?"

"But there isn't to be anything."

"So I've told her for months past. I'm not going to say anything to blame you; but young men ought to be very particular; indeed they ought." Johnny did not choose to hint to the disconsolate mother that it also behoved young women to be very particular, but he thought it. "I've wished many a time, Mr. Eames, that she had never come here; indeed I have. But what's