“But she ain’t—­there, listen! don’t you hear her going on?” Poor Mary Ann’s sobs were still audible, though exhaustion was making them momently weaker.  “She’s been going on like that ever since I broke the news to ’er and gave her a piece of my mind—­the sly little cat!  She wanted to go on scrubbing the kitchen, and I had to take the brush away by main force.  A nice thing, indeed!  A gel as can keep a nors-end-kerridge down on the cold kitchen stones!  ’Twasn’t likely I could allow that.  ‘No, Mary Ann,’ says I, firmly, ’you’re a lady, and if you don’t know what’s proper for a lady, you’d best listen to them as does.  You go and buy yourself a dress and a jacket to be ready for that vicar who’s been a real good kind friend to you; he’s coming to take you away on Monday, he is, and how will you look in that dirty print?  Here’s a suvrin,’ says I, ’out of my ‘ard-earned savin’s—­and get a pair o’ boots, too:  you can git a sweet pair for 2s. 11d. at Rackstraw’s afore the sale closes,’ and with that I shoves the suvrin into ‘er hand instead o’ the scrubbin’ brush, and what does she do?  Why, busts out a-cryin’ and sits on the damp stones, and sobs, and sulks, and stares at the suvrin in her hand as if I’d told her of a funeral instead of a fortune!” concluded Mrs. Leadbatter, alliteratively.

“But you did—­her brother’s death,” said Lancelot.  “That’s what she’s crying about.”

Mrs. Leadbatter was taken aback by this obverse view of the situation; but recovering herself, she shook her head. “I wouldn’t cry for no brother that lef me to starve when he was rollin’ in two and a ’arf million dollars,” she said sceptically.  “And I’m sure my Rosie wouldn’t.  But she never ’ad nobody to leave her money, poor dear child, except me, please Gaud.  It’s only the fools as ’as the luck in this world.”  And having thus relieved her bosom, she resumed her panting progress upwards.

The last words rang on in Lancelot’s ears long after he had returned to his room.  In the utter breakdown and confusion of his plans and his ideas, it was the one definite thought he clung to, as a swimmer in a whirlpool clings to a rock.  His brain refused to concentrate itself on any other aspect of the situation—­he could not, would not, dared not, think of anything else.  He knew vaguely he ought to rejoice with her over her wonderful stroke of luck, that savoured of the fairy-story, but everything was swamped by that one almost resentful reflection.  Oh, the irony of fate!  Blind fate showering torrents of gold upon this foolish, babyish household drudge; who was all emotion and animal devotion, without the intellectual outlook of a Hottentot, and leaving men of genius to starve, or sell their souls for a handful of it!  How was the wisdom of the ages justified!  Verily did fortune favour fools.  And Tom—­the wicked—­he had flourished as the wicked always do, like the green bay tree, as the Psalmist discovered ever so many centuries ago.