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Wrench was a small, neat, bilious man, with a well-dressed wig: he had a laborious practice, an irascible temper, a lymphatic wife and seven children; and he was already rather late before setting out on a four-miles drive to meet Dr. Minchin on the other side of Tipton, the decease of Hicks, a rural practitioner, having increased Middlemarch practice in that direction.
Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry. "Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What CAN have happened?" Miss Minchin wasted no words. "Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands." Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair. "Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her.
And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would be if you suddenly found out " She had the imagined picture so clearly before her eyes, that she spoke in a manner which had an effect even on Miss Minchin. It almost seemed for the moment to her narrow, unimaginative mind that there must be some real power behind this candid daring. "What!" she exclaimed, "found out what?"
You're a sweet little puss. And of course you're childish, because you're a child," adds Miss Matilda, with an air. For had not she begun to write her own age with two figures? Had I known then as much as I learned afterwards of what it meant to be "taken up" by Mrs. Minchin, I might not have thought the comparison a good omen for my friendship with Matilda. To be hotly taken up by Mrs.
Lady Jane Ranville's great coach had roared away down the streets long before. Fred Minchin pattered off in his clogs: it was I who covered up Miss Meggot, and conducted her, with her two old sisters, to the carriage. Good old souls! They have shown their gratitude by asking me to tea next Tuesday. Methuselah is gone to finish the night at the club.
Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had been removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put back into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it always did all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed her usual dress.
"Well, let us run and ask her," said Netty; "it would be a great pity if I didn't get off with the rest of you. Do let me look at the tickets once more, Ben." Ben condescended to give Netty one more peep. "Don't you forget when they're calling out our names that you are Susy Minchin," he said; "and now if I can get twopence Mrs. Court will look after baby."
This morning, however, in the tight, small black frock, she looked thinner and odder than ever, and her eyes were fixed on Miss Minchin with a queer steadiness as she slowly advanced into the parlor, clutching her doll. "Put your doll down!" said Miss Minchin. "No," said the child, "I won't put her down; I want her with me. She is all I have.
This habit certainly affected my health, and I had become a very thin, weak child when the home voyage came to restore my strength. By the time we reached Riflebury, my fashionable new dress was neither new nor fashionable. It was then that Mrs. Minchin ferreted out a dressmaker whom Mrs. St. Quentin employed, and I was put under her hands.
I was overseer at the principal out-station a good enough billet in its way and Minchin was overseer in at the homestead. But Steel was the boss, damn him, trust Steel to be the boss!" "But if the station was his?" queried Langholm. "I suppose it was a station?" he added, as a furious shower of sparks came from the cutty. "Was it a station?" the ex-overseer echoed.
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