The Story of Bessie Costrell by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 38 of 93 (40%)
page 38 of 93 (40%)
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something for himself to induce him to hold his tongue. She had thought
of this often before, but never so urgently as now. She would take the carrier's cart to Bedford next day, while Isaac was at work, and try. Yet all the time despair was at her heart. So hard to undo! Yet how easy it had been to take and to spend. She thought of that day in September, when she had got the news of her legacy--six shillings a week from an old aunt--her father's aunt, whose very existence she had forgotten. The wild delight of it! Isaac got sixteen shillings a week in wages--here was nearly half as much again. She was warned that it would come to an end in two years. But none the less it seemed to her a fortune--and all her life, before it came, mere hard pinching and endurance. She had always been one to spend where she could. Old John had often rated her for it. So had Isaac. But that was his money. This was hers, and he who, for religious reasons, had never made friends with or thought well of any of her family, instinctively disliked the money which had come from them, and made few inquiries into the spending of it. Oh! the joy of those first visits to Frampton, when all the shops had seemed to be there for her, and she their natural mistress! How ready people had been to trust her in the village! How tempting it had been to brag and make a mystery! That old skinflint, Mrs. Moulsey, at 'the shop,' she had been all sugar and sweets _then_. And a few weeks later--six, seven weeks later--about the beginning of October, these halcyon days had all come to an end. She owed what she could not pay--people had ceased to smile upon her--she was harassed, excited, worried out of her life. Old familiar wonder of such a temperament! How can it be so easy to |
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