"With all my heart," said the other. "Though I would sooner have
put up at the Chequers or The Jack. You can't get much at these
temperance houses."
"Now, don't you give way to gluttonous desires, my child," said the
woman in weeds reprovingly. "This is the proper place. Very well:
we'll meet in half an hour, unless you come with me to find out where
the site of the new chapel is?"
"I don't care to. You can tell me."
The companions then went their several ways, the one in crape walking
firmly along with a mien of disconnection from her miscellaneous
surroundings. Making inquiries she came to a hoarding, within which
were excavations denoting the foundations of a building; and on
the boards without one or two large posters announcing that the
foundation-stone of the chapel about to be erected would be laid that
afternoon at three o'clock by a London preacher of great popularity
among his body.
Having ascertained thus much the immensely weeded widow retraced her
steps, and gave herself leisure to observe the movements of the fair.
By and by her attention was arrested by a little stall of cakes and
ginger-breads, standing between the more pretentious erections of
trestles and canvas. It was covered with an immaculate cloth, and
tended by a young woman apparently unused to the business, she being
accompanied by a boy with an octogenarian face, who assisted her.
"Upon my--senses!" murmured the widow to herself. "His wife Sue--if
she is so!" She drew nearer to the stall. "How do you do, Mrs.
Fawley?" she said blandly.
Sue changed colour and recognized Arabella through the crape veil.
"How are you, Mrs. Cartlett?" she said stiffly. And then perceiving
Arabella's garb her voice grew sympathetic in spite of herself.
"What?--you have lost--"
"My poor husband. Yes. He died suddenly, six weeks ago, leaving me
none too well off, though he was a kind husband to me. But whatever
profit there is in public-house keeping goes to them that brew the
liquors, and not to them that retail 'em... And you, my little old
man! You don't know me, I expect?"
"Yes, I do. You be the woman I thought wer my mother for a bit, till
I found you wasn't," replied Father Time, who had learned to use the
Wessex tongue quite naturally by now.
"All right. Never mind. I am a friend."
"Juey," said Sue suddenly, "go down to the station platform with this
tray--there's another train coming in, I think."