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It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said to
Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead my
dear that I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over to
tea, only I durstn't on account of the Major. Not you see but what
I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and wind him round my
finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if I was to set
myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to
one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she had offended his
pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid that that Rairyganoo
girl might make things awkward. So I says "My dear if you could
give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better
understand your affairs." And we had the tea and the affairs too
and after all it was but forty pound, and--There! she's as
industrious and straight a creeter as ever lived and has paid back
half of it already, and where's the use of saying more, particularly
when it ain't the point? For the point is that when she was a
kissing my hands and holding them in hers and kissing them again and
blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at last and I says "Why
what a waddling old goose I have been my dear to take you for
something so very different!" "Ah but I too" says she "how have I
mistaken YOU!" "Come for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you
thought of me?" "O" says she "I thought you had no feeling for such
a hard hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence."
I says shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a
choking quite long enough) "Only look at my figure my dear and give
me your opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to
roll in it? "That did it? We got as merry as grigs (whatever THEY
are, if you happen to know my dear--I don't) and I went home to my
blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. But before I
make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood the Major!
Yes! For next forenoon the Major came into my little room with his
brushed hat in his hand and he begins "My dearest madam--" and then
put his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. As I
sat all in a maze he came out of his hat and began again. "My
esteemed and beloved friend--" and then went into his hat again.
"Major," I cries out frightened "has anything happened to our
darling boy?" "No, no, no" says the Major "but Miss Wozenham has
been here this morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I
can't get over what she told me." "Hoity toity, Major," I says "you
don't know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn't think
half as well of you as I ought! So come out of church Major and
forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do so any more."
And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did or will. And
how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income and
her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a
brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the
hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented
to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton
whenever provided!
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