"I know what it is; I was the same when Jim Story got the sack. It seems
as if one couldn't live through it, and yet one does somehow."
"I wonder if they'll marry."
"Most probable. She has a lot of money."
Two days after a cab stood in the yard in front of the kitchen window.
Peggy's luggage was being piled upon it--two large, handsome basket boxes
with the initials painted on them. Kneeling on the box-seat, the coachman
leaned over the roof making room for another--a small box covered with red
cowhide and tied with a rough rope. The little box in its poor simplicity
brought William back to Esther, whelming her for a moment in so acute a
sense of her loss that she had to leave the kitchen. She went into the
scullery, drew the door after her, sat down, and hid her face in her
apron. A stifled sob or two, and then she recovered her habitual gravity
of expression, and continued her work as if nothing had happened.
XII
"They are just crazy about it upstairs. Ginger and the Gaffer are the
worst. They say they had better sell the place and build another house
somewhere else. None of the county people will call on them now--and just
as they were beginning to get on so well! Miss Mary, too, is terrible cut
up about it; she says it will interfere with her prospects, and that
Ginger has nothing to do now but to marry the kitchen-maid to complete the
ruin of the Barfields.
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