She at once spoke playfully to Arabella: "I zeed 'ee running with 'un—hee-hee! I hope 'tis coming to something?"
Arabella merely threw a look of consciousness into her face without raising her eyes.
"He's for Christminster, I hear, as soon as he can get there."
"Have you heard that lately—quite lately?" asked Arabella with a jealous, tigerish indrawing of breath.
"Oh no! But it has been known a long time that it is his plan. He's on'y waiting here for an opening. Ah well: he must walk about with somebody, I s'pose. Young men don't mean much now-a-days. 'Tis a sip here and a sip there with 'em. 'Twas different in my time."
When the gossip had departed Arabella said suddenly to her mother: "I want you and Father to go and inquire how the Edlins be, this evening after tea. Or no—there's
