Henry's, endeared her to Polly as nothing else could have
done.
But when, vigilant as a mother-hen, she sought to prepare her husband
for a possible unpleasantness, she found him already informed; and her
well-meant words were like a match laid to his suppressed indignation.
"In all my born days I never heard such impudence!"
He turned embarrassingly cool to Tilly. And Tilly, innocent of offence
and quite unskilled in deciphering subtleties, put this sudden change of
front down to jealousy, because she was going to live in a grander house
than he did. For the same reason he had begun to turn up his nose at
"Old O.," or she was very much mistaken; and in vain did Polly strive to
convince her that she was in error. "I don't know anyone Richard has a
higher opinion of!"
But it was a very uncomfortable state of things; and when a message
arrived over the electric telegraph announcing the dangerous illness of
Mrs. Beamish, distressed though she was by the news, Polly could not
help heaving a tiny sigh of relief. For Tilly was summoned back to
Melbourne with all speed, if she wished to see her mother alive.
They mingled their tears, Polly on her knees at the packing, Tilly
weeping whole-heartedly among the pillows of the bed.
"If it 'ad only been pa now, I shouldn't have felt it half so much," and
she blew her nose for the hundredth time. "Pa was always such a rum old
stick. But poor ma . . . when I THINK how she's toiled and moiled 'er
whole life long, to keep things going.
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