I was
born in '37'--with her eager smile--'and for years it was on our
table. I have made quantities of it. The art was brought first by the
Phoenicians----'
'Venetians,' said Monkey.
'No, Phoenicians, dear, when they came to Cornwall for tin----'
'To put the cream in,' from the same source.
'No, you silly child, to get tin from the mines, of course, and----'
Then Mother or Daddy, noting the drift of things, would interfere, and
the youngsters would be obliterated--until next time. Miss Waghorn
would finish her recital for the hundredth time, firmly believing it
to be the first. She was a favourite with everybody, in spite of the
anxiety she caused. She would go into town to pay her bill at the
bootmaker's, and order another pair of boots instead, forgetting why
she came. Her income was sixty pounds a year. She forgot in the
afternoon the money she had received in the morning, till at last the
Widow Jequier seized it for her the moment it arrived. And at night
she would doze in her chair over the paper novel she had been "at"
for a year and more, beginning it every night afresh, and rarely
getting beyond the opening chapter. For it was ever new. All were
anxious, though, what she would do next. She was so full of battle.
Everybody talked at once, but forced conversation did not flourish.
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