"You've got handsome children, ma'am. I've knowed it since folk used to
crowd round my pram to have a look at them when I wheeled 'em out, times
gone by, as babies. Ofttimes the pavement got blocked, as you've heard me
mention before. There's no two opinions about their looks, and we know
which side they got them from."
There were no two opinions about that, at any rate. Not even the most
charitable critic could have credited poor William Day with good looks;
and the tired pathetic face of his widow was a handsome face still.
CHAPTER XI
The Attractive Bessie
Having been permitted to take his place among them, and to chop material
for mincemeat at their kitchen table, it was felt by them all that their
boarder could never be a stranger to the widow and her children again.
Through pride and through shyness they had held him at arm's length, but
now that they had joked together about George Boult's peculiarities, and
he had ventured with playful force to take the nutmeg grater from Bessie's
weary fingers, valiantly completing her task himself, it would have been
impossible, even if desirable, to return to their earlier relations.
Bessie, who had treated him with a carefully masked hauteur in the
beginning, was among the first to place him on terms of easy familiarity.
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