A House to Let Read Online Free Page B

that afternoon, the little sick child
was brought in, and the grandmother—who after all loved it well—began a
fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious ears—saying how she had
planned to consult this or that doctor, and to give it this or that
comfort or luxury in after yearn but that now all chance of this had
passed away—Alice's heart was touched, and she drew near to Mrs. Wilson
with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not unlike to that of, Ruth,
entreated, that come what would, they might remain together. After much
discussion in succeeding days, it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should
take a house in Manchester, furnishing it partly with what furniture she
had, and providing the rest with Alice's remaining two hundred pounds.
Mrs. Wilson was herself a Manchester woman, and naturally longed to
return to her native town. Some connections of her own at that time
required lodgings, for which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely.
Alice undertook the active superintendence and superior work of the
household. Norah, willing faithful Norah, offered to cook, scour, do
anything in short, so that, she might but remain with them.
    The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with
them, and all went smoothly,—with the one sad exception of the little
girl's increasing deformity. How that mother loved that child, is not
for words to tell!
    Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one
succeeded to them. After some months they had to remove to a smaller
house; and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought
not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but ought to go out and seek her
own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came like the
sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart.
    Bye-and-bye, Mr. Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in
life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up
through all the grades of employment in the place, fighting his way
through the hard striving Manchester life with strong pushing energy of
character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to self-
teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German scholar,
a keen, far-seeing tradesman; understanding markets, and the bearing of
events, both near and distant, on trade: and yet, with such vivid
attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a group of
flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colours would, or
would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and
prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself with all his
heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must be owned, every man a
fool or a knave who differed from him, and overthrowing his opponents
rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength if his
logic. There was something of the Yankee in all this. Indeed his theory
ran parallel to the famous Yankee motto—"England flogs creation, and
Manchester flogs England." Such a man, as may be fancied, had had no
time for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At the age when most
young men go through their courting and matrimony, he had not the means
of keeping a wife, and was far too practical to think of having one. And
now that he was in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women
almost as incumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as
little to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct,
and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. "A pretty yea-
nay kind of woman," would have been his description of her, if he had
been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning, that
her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of character which
would have been exceedingly discordant to his active energetic nature.
But, when he found out the punctuality with which his wishes were
attended to, and her work was done; when he was called in the morning at
the very