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Updated: May 18, 2025
"Upstairs," she answered callously. No reply from the sitting-room! At two o'clock on the last Wednesday of every month, old Mr. Skellorn, employed by Mrs. Lessways to collect her cottage-rents, called with a statement of account, and cash in a linen bag. He was now due.
The prospect of being alone in the house with Florrie, of being free for a space to live her own life untrammelled and throw all her ardour into her work, was inexpressibly attractive to Hilda. It promised the most delicious experience that she had ever had. "Yes," retorted Mrs. Lessways. "And leave you here by yourself! A nice thing!" "I shall be all right," said Hilda confidently and joyously.
I dare say the purchase money if it's carefully invested will bring you in as much. But even if it doesn't bring in quite as much, you mustn't forget that Calder Street's going down it's getting more and more of a slum. And there'll always be a lot of bother with tenants of that class." "I wish I could sell everything everything!" she exclaimed passionately. "Lessways Street as well!
Lessways excitedly whispered. "Do do you know him?" Hilda faltered. "Do I know him!... What does he want?" "He wants to see you." "What about?" "I suppose it's about property or something," Hilda replied, blushing. Never had she felt so abject in front of her mother. Mrs. Lessways rapidly unpinned the flannel petticoat and then threw it, with a desperate gesture of sacrifice, on to the deal table.
Nevertheless it was plain that the notion appealed to her fancy, and that she would enjoy flirting with it. "Nonsense, Mrs. Lessways!" said George Cannon. "It would do you a world of good, and it would make all the difference to Sally." "That it would!" Sarah agreed, still questioning Caroline with her watery, appealing eyes. In Caroline, Sarah saw her salvation, and snatched at it.
From the flour-mill a bricked path, which separated a considerable row of new cottages from their appurtenant gardens, led straight into Lessways Street, in front of Mrs. Lessways' house. By this path Mr. Skellorn should have arrived, for he inhabited the farthest of the cottages. Hilda held Mr. Skellorn in disdain, as she held the row of cottages in disdain. It seemed to her that Mr.
Lessways had only the vaguest notion of its dangerousness, and was indeed a negligent kind of woman. Dangerous the book was! Once in reciting it aloud in her room, Hilda had come so near to fainting that she had had to stop and lie down on the bed, until she could convince herself that she was not the male lover crying to his beloved.
The eyes, lips, and nostrils were a revelation to him. He could feel his heart beating. But the girl strongly repelled him. Nobody else appeared to be conscious that anything singular had occurred. Jimmie and Johnnie sidled out of the room. "Oh! Indeed!" Charlie directed his candid and yet faintly ironic smile upon Hilda Lessways. "Don't you think that some of it's dullish, Teddy?" Edwin blushed.
Hilda Lessways and Edwin were not gay, and Hilda would characteristically make no effort to seem that which she was not. Edwin, therefore, was driven by his own diffidence into a nervous light loquacity. He began the tale of Mr Shushions, and Hilda punctuated it with stabs of phrases. Mr Orgreave laughed. Janet listened with eager sympathy. "Poor old thing! What a shame!" said Janet.
HILAIRE BELLOC, best known as a writer on history, politics, and economics; a recognized authority on the French Revolution. ARNOLD BENNETT, author of many popular realistic studies of English provincial life, including "Clayhanger" and "Hilda Lessways." ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, chiefly known for "From a College Window," "Beside Still Waters," and other volumes of essays.
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