" she wore no wedding
ring, and spoke of the person who should have been Mr. Jupp as "my
poor dear boy's father," not as "my husband." But to return. I was
vexed at Ernest's having been ordained. I was not ordained myself
and I did not like my friends to be ordained, nor did I like having to
be on my best behaviour and to look as if butter would not melt in
my mouth, and all for a boy whom I remembered when he knew yesterday
and to-morrow and Tuesday, but not a day of the week more- not even
Sunday itself -and when he said he did not like the kitten because
it had pins in its toes.
I looked at him and thought of his Aunt Alethea, and how fast the
money she had left him was accumulating; and it was all to go to
this young man, who would use it probably in the very last ways with
which Miss Pontifex would have sympathised. I was annoyed. "She always
said," I thought to myself, "that she should make a mess of it, but
I did not think she would have made as great a mess of it as this."
Then I thought that perhaps if his aunt had lived he would not have
been like this.
Ernest behaved quite nicely to me and I own that the fault was
mine if the conversation drew towards dangerous subjects.
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