A Mummer's Wife

ore distinctly in recollection than when he had held her in his arms. She walked immersed in recollections, every one clear and precise, experiencing a sort of super

fall he had! I hope h

from the workroom, and it was not without surprise that she caught herself wishing suddenly they were her own

nd the workmen who were tearing up the road forced her to consider how a suspension of traffic would interfere with her business. She was now in Broad Street, and when she raised her eyes she saw her own house. A new building high and narrow, it s

chen, cried, 'Well, is that you, Kate? Where have you been

ind Mrs. Ede was the last

r? Aren't you well? Shall

right. Can't you see t

waited dinner an hour for

s. Barnes kept me waiting above an hour trying her dress on, and then I was so done up with night-watching and sewing that I thought

ing. Mrs. White had bought one of the aprons; she said she hadn't seen the pattern before; a stranger had t

d put new trimming on the bodice for seven and s

d Mrs. Wood, the bookseller's wife, you know, up the street, was going to

see nob

chiefs; I let him have the half-dozen for four shillings; and

one a deal of business

n stock, and it hasn't go

y kind of Mrs. West to

etting on wit

he was here at half-past eight, and she did not sto

o backward in my life with my work,

n which there was no likelihood of their agreeing. But her mother-in-law, guessing that Kate was thinking of the mummer, said, 'Yes, I wanted t

t it was settled last night that he was to be told that he mustn't bring friends

he had finished her dinner she went upstairs to see Ralph, whom Mrs. Ede declared to be much better.

? How we've missed you all

me to help her with the skirt, and I did a great long

e, smiling; 'but I shall be down presen

it?' cried An

ll see p

ropped up in his usual attitude

g?' she said, as she sat down by the be

upside-down, you might as well have stayed aw

g as much as his breath would allow him, 'and what a rage mother was in! But tell me, what

Kate answered. 'But I don't think mother h

upon her prayers,' Ra

leasant man, and often in sudden flashes of affection

looking aside, for the comic side of th

ph was seized with a fit of coughing, and when th

l the day? We've been wonde

'It's just as Hender says; if I'm out half an hour more than my time everyone is, as they say, "wondering what has become of me

ut up with me three nights running. And what a time you must h

ll the aprons, and he said: 'I knew t

satisfy him; 'but you mustn't talk so

re you

e a lot to do; but I'll come ba

kiss me bef

a woman feels in the room of a man she is interested in. Hoping that Mrs. Ede had not yet set everything straight, she went on to make sure. Slippers and boots lay about; the portmanteau yawned wide open, with some soiled shirts on the top; a pair of trousers trailed from a chair on the floor. Annoyed at the mother's negligence, Kate hung the trousers on the door, placed the slippers tidily by his bedside, and put away the soiled linen. But in doing so she could not refrain from glan

s suggested delicacy of living, the chemise immorality, the bottle of scent refinement of taste; the bracelet she could make nothing of. Prosaic and vulgar as were all these articles, in the dressmaker's imagination they became both poetized and purified. An infinite sadness, that she could not explain, rose up through her mind, and, staring vaguely at the pious exhortations hung on the wall-'Thou art my will,' 'Tho

r us?' said four red

lied, taking a chair, and bid

e?' crie

N

ge?' cri

sight of their bright looks sh

is swe

dy ba

N

ffe

said Kate, as she divided the

for guessing right?'

nie! I didn't thin

nce. 'Had it not been for me Miss Hender would never have got t

istress curiously. But while the children were present, she

abandoned herself to all sorts of soft and floating reveries. Not for years had she known what it was to take her fill of rest; and her thoughts swayed,

inging, of the cider song, of Joe Mortimer's splendid miser scene, of Bret's success in the barcarole. So eagerly did she speak of them that one would have th