Page 118 - sons-and-lovers

She dropped her string bag and her packages on the ta-
ble.
‘Is the bread done?’ she asked, going to the oven.
‘The last one is soaking,’ he replied. ‘You needn’t look,
I’ve not forgotten it.’
‘Oh, that pot man!’ she said, closing the oven door. ‘You
know what a wretch I’ve said he was? Well, I don’t think he’s
quite so bad.’
‘Don’t you?’
The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black
bonnet.
‘No. I think he can’t make any money—well, it’s
everybody’s cry alike nowadays—and it makes him dis-
agreeable.’
‘It would ME,’ said Paul.
‘Well, one can’t wonder at it. And he let me have—how
much do you think he let me have THIS for?’
She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood
looking on it with joy.
‘Show me!’ said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
‘I LOVE cornflowers on things,’ said Paul.
‘Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me—-‘
‘One and three,’ said Paul.
‘Fivepence!’
‘It’s not enough, mother.’
‘No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I’d
been extravagant, I couldn’t afford any more. And he
needn’t have let me have it if he hadn’t wanted to.’

11