“So I’m most at the end of my tether.  It’s real curious you should come just now, with me feelin’ that desperate I been minded to walk out anyhow an’ risk things.  You sure that feller ain’t got nothin’ ails him?  Not crazy, nor a dope, nor nothin’?”

“My nephew is perfectly normal in every respect,” said Mr. Champneys, frigidly.

“What’s he look like in the face?” she demanded.  “Is he as ugly as me?”

“He is a gentleman,” said Peter’s uncle, even more frigidly.  “As to his appearance, I believe he resembles me.  At least, he looks like what I used to look like.”

“Well—­I’ve seen worse,” said she, and fetched a sigh.

A sudden thought struck him.  “Perhaps,” he suggested, making allowance for the sentimentality of extreme youth, “perhaps you have some notion about—­er—­ah—­marrying for love, or something like that?  There may be some young fellow you think you fancy?  Young people in your—­ah—­that is, in the circumstances to which you unfortunately have been subjected, often rush into ill-considered entanglements.”

“In love?  Who, me?  Who with, for Gawdsake?  One feller means just as much to me as another feller:  they’re all alike,” said she, contemptuously.  “I just asked about him for—­for references.  You know what you’re gettin’, an’ I got a right to know what I’m gettin’.”

“You have:  so please remember that you are getting a considerable portion of the Champneys money for doing what you’re told to do,” said he.

“I never knew till you told me so that the Champneyses had any money.  But if it’s there, I’m willing to do what I’m told, for my share.  Why not?  There ain’t nothin’ better for me, nowheres, nohow.”

“I am to understand, then, that you agree?”

“What else can I do but agree?” she asked, twisting a fold of her apron.

The parlor door opened with violence; a thick-set man with a bald head and a red face, followed by a shrewish, thin woman with pinched lips, appeared on the threshold.

“I s’pose,” said the woman, with elaborate courtesy, “we kin come in our own parler, Miss Simms?  Has you resigned your job that you gotta pick out the parler to set in whilst I’m doin’ your work for you?”

Nancy’s visitor rose, and at sight of the tall old gentleman an avid curiosity appeared in both vulgar faces.

“Mr. Champneys, this is the lady an’ gentleman I live with and work for without wages, Mister an’ Missis Baxter.  Mister an’ Missis Baxter, this gentleman is Aunt Milly’s husband, an’ he’s come to see me; an’ you ain’t called to show off the manners you ain’t got!”

“Well, why couldn’t you say who he was at first, an’ have done with it?” grumbled the man.  “But no, you gotta upset the whole house!  She’s the provokin’est piece o’ flesh on the created earth, when she starts,” he explained to the visitor.

“To aggravate an’ torment them that’s raised her an’ kept her out of the asylum an’ fed an’ clothed an’ learned her like a daughter, is what Nancy Simms ‘d rather do than eat an’ drink,” supplemented Mrs. Baxter, acridly.