"- And
have it she did.
"And I," thought Ernest to himself again when the arrangement was
concluded, "am the man who thought himself unlucky!"
I may as well say here all that need be said further about Ellen.
For the next three years she used to call regularly at Mr. Ottery's
every Monday morning for her pound. She was always neatly dressed, and
looked so quiet and pretty that no one would have suspected her
antecedents. At first she wanted sometimes to anticipate, but after
three or four ineffectual attempts- on each of which occasions she
told a most pitiful story- she gave it up and took her money regularly
without a word. Once she came with a bad black eye, "which a boy had
throwed a stone and hit her by "mistake"; but on the whole she
looked pretty much the same at the end of the three years as she had
done at the beginning. Then she explained that she was going to be
married again. Mr. Ottery saw her on this, and pointed out to her that
she would very likely be again committing bigamy by doing so. "You may
call it what you like," she replied, "but I am going off to America
with Bill the butcher's man, and we hope Mr. Pontifex won't be too
hard on us and stop the allowance.
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