Page:WW Jacobs--The lady of the barge.djvu/139

This page needs to be proofread.
Cupboard Love
123

"Oh ! George ! How can you say so ?" said the latter.

"I should never ha' thought of it by myself," said the farmer; "but I think they'd make a very nice couple, and I'm sure Mrs. Driver thinks so."

The ex-constable sat down in wrathful confusion, and taking up his notebook again, watched over the top of it the silent charges and countercharges of his niece and her husband.

"If I put my finger on the culprit," he asked at length, turning to his niece, "what do you wish done to her?"

Mrs. Negget regarded him with an expression which contained all the Christian virtues rolled into one.

"Nothing," she said, softly. "I only want my brooch back."

The ex-constable shook his head at this leniency.

"Well, do as you please," he said, slowly. "In the first place, I want you to ask Mrs. Driver here to tea to-morrow — oh, I don't mind Negget's ridiculous ideas — pity he hasn't

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.