Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/238

216 a mother to do? I couldn't put her outside the door." Then Mrs. Roper raised her apron up to her eyes, and began to sob.

"I'm very sorry if I've made any mischief," said Johnny.

"It hasn't been your fault," continued the poor woman, from whom, as her tears became uncontrollable, her true feelings forced themselves and the real outpouring of her feminine nature. "Nor it hasn't been my fault. But I knew what it would come to when I saw how she was going on; and I told her so. I knew you wouldn't put up with the likes of her."

"Indeed, Mrs. Roper, I've always had a great regard for her, and for you too."

"But you weren't going to marry her. I've told her so all along, and I've begged her not to do it,—almost on my knees I have; but she wouldn't be said by me. She never would. She's always been that wilful that I'd sooner have her away from me than with me. Though she's a good young woman in the house,—she is, indeed, Mr. Eames;—and there isn't a pair of hands in it that works so hard; but it was no use my talking."

"I don't think any harm has been done."

"Yes, there has; great harm. It has made the place not respectable. It's the Lupexes is the worst. There's Miss Spruce, who has been with me for nine years,—ever since I've had the house,—she's been telling me this morning that she means to go into the country. It's all the same thing. I understand it. I can see it. The house isn't respectable, as it should be; and your mamma, if she were to know all, would have a right to be angry with me. I did mean to be respectable, Mr. Eames; I did indeed."

"Miss Spruce will think better of it."

"You don't know what I've had to go through. There's none of them pays, not regular,—only she and you. She's been like the Bank of England, has Miss Spruce."

"I'm afraid I've not been very regular, Mrs. Roper."

"Oh, yes, you have. I don't think of a pound or two more or less at the end of a quarter, if I'm sure to have it some day. The butcher,—he understands one's lodgers just as well as I do,—if the money's really coming, he'll wait; but he won't wait for such as them Lupexes, whose money's nowhere. And there's Cradell; would you believe it, that fellow owes me eight and twenty pounds!"

"Eight and twenty pounds!"