Henry Ocock into a dark
shrubbery--while Polly talked, the postman handed in two letters, which
were of a nature to put balls and races clean out of her head. The first
was in Mrs. Beamish's ill-formed hand, and told a sorrowful tale. Custom
had entirely gone: a new hotel had been erected on the new road; Beamish
was forced to declare himself a bankrupt; and in a few days the Family
Hotel, with all its contents, would be put up at public auction. What
was to become of them, God alone knew. She supposed she would end her
days in taking in washing, and the girls must go out as servants. But
she was sure Polly, now so up in the world, with a husband doing so
well, would not forget the old friends who had once been so kind to her
--with much more in the same strain, which Polly skipped, in reading the
letter aloud. The long and short of it was: would Polly ask her husband
to lend them a couple of hundred pounds to make a fresh start with, or
failing that to put his name to a bill for the same amount?
"Of course she hasn't an idea we were obliged to borrow money
ourselves," said Polly in response to Mahony's ironic laugh. "I couldn't
tell them that."
"No . . . nor that it's a perpetual struggle to keep the wolf from the
door," answered her husband, battering in the top of an egg with the
back of his spoon.
"Oh, Richard dear, things aren't quite so bad as that," said Polly
cheerfully. Then she heaved a sigh. "I know, of course, we can't afford
to help them; but I DO feel so sorry for them"--she herself would have
given the dress off her back.
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