"He's for ever
pottering about with 'em. What amusement 'e gets out of it, only the
Lord can tell."
She did not mention the fact, known to Mary, that when Johnny had a
drinking-bout it was she who looked after him, got him comfortably to
bed, and made shift to keep the noise from his father's ears. Yes,
Tilly's charity seemed sheerly inexhaustible.
Again, there was the case of Jinny's children.
For in this particular winter Tilly had exchanged her black silk for a
stuff gown, heavily trimmed with crepe. She was in mourning for poor
Jinny, who had died not long after giving birth to a third daughter.
"Died OF the daughter, in more senses than one," was Tilly's verdict.
John had certainly been extremely put out at the advent of yet another
girl; and the probability was that Jinny had taken his reproaches too
much to heart. However it was, she could not rally; and one day Mary
received a telegram saying that if she wished to see Jinny alive, she
must come at once. No mention was made of Tilly, but Mary ran to her
with the news, and Tilly declared her intention of going, too. "I
suppose I may be allowed to say good-bye to my own sister, even though
I'm not a Honourable?"
"Not that Jinn and I ever really drew together," she continued as the
train bore them over the ranges. "She'd too much of poor pa in 'er. And
I was all ma. Hard luck that it must just be her who managed to get such
a domineering brute for a husband.
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