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There were days when Sophia seemed to possess it; but there were other days when Sophia's pastry was uneatable by any one except Maggie. Thus Mrs. Baines, though intensely proud and fond of her daughters, had justifiably preserved a certain condescension towards them. She honestly doubted whether either of them would develop into the equal of their mother. "Now you little vixen!" she exclaimed.
And at the back of that notion was a more general notion: "Nothing could change a Baines." It was true that Constance's Sophia had not changed. Powerful individualities remain undisfigured by no matter what vicissitudes. After this revelation of the original Sophia, arising as it did out of praise of Cyril, Constance felt easier, felt reassured.
And Raikes, the Postmaster-General; told the Queen all the travail of Baines, the Inspector-General, and of them that were with him, and how they had wrought all for the greater glory of the Queen's name.
"Come, sister," said Mrs. Maddack. "A last look." And they passed into the mortuary bedroom to gaze at Mr. Baines before he should be everlastingly nailed down. In death he had recovered some of his earlier dignity; but even so he was a startling sight. The two widows bent over him, one on either side, and gravely stared at that twisted, worn white face all neatly tucked up in linen.
"Might as well save what I kin out of the wreck," he said to himself, and quietly manufactured a dummy contracting company to whom he let the entire job for a lump sum of thirty-eight thousand seven hundred dollars. The dummy contractor was Scattergood Baines. The dam was completed, booms and cribbing placed, ledges blasted out well within the six months' period set for those operations.
"Why Baines!" they said, "of course; he was here two nights! you saw him yesterday at the Club the man with his hands bandaged; that's Baines; he's always getting into pickles he nearly bled to death!
Critchlow was an extremely peculiar man, but when he was in the bedroom she could leave the house with an easy mind. Moreover, John Baines enjoyed these Thursday afternoons. For him, there was 'none like Charles Critchlow. The two old friends experienced a sort of grim, desiccated happiness, cooped up together in the bedroom, secure from women and fools generally.
Povey, this is not like you," said Mrs. Baines, who, on her way into the shop, had discovered the Indispensable in the cutting-out room. It is true that the cutting-out room was almost Mr. Povey's sanctum, whither he retired from time to time to cut out suits of clothes and odd garments for the tailoring department.
But no one of these tricks, nor any other, is present in excess: there is nothing that can justly be called falsetto; and in especial, though some names of merely ephemeral interest are in evidence Baines, Roebuck, Miall, &c., Mr Arnold's well-known substitutes for Cleon and Cinesias there is nothing like the torrent of personal allusion in Friendship's Garland.
"I calc'late," said Scattergood to himself but aloud "that I'll kind of substitute Grandmother Penny for Grandma Baines pervidin' Grandma Baines is fixed so's she kin see; more'n likely she'll understand what I'm up to, and it'll tickle her I'm goin' to up and borrow me a grandmother." He wriggled his toes and considered. What thing had his grandmother most desired?
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