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Jemima Shuckleford still nurses her sorrow in secret, and it will be a year or two yet before the happy man is to turn up who shall reconcile her to life, and disestablish the image of Reginald Cruden from her soft heart. Meanwhile she and her mother are constant visitors at the little house in Highbury where the Crudens now live, and as often as they go they find a welcome.
He said Mr Reginald was a convict, or something, and if I didn't mind every letter that came to the house from Liverpool I'd get sent to prison too for abetting him. I'm sure I don't want to abet no one, and I can't help if they do lock me up." "You mean to say Mr Shuckleford told you to do this?" said or rather roared Horace.
"Jemima, my dear," said Mrs Shuckleford one day, as the little family in Number 4, Dull Street, sat round their evening meal, "I don't like the looks of Mrs Cruden. It's my opinion she don't get enough to eat." "Really, ma, how you talk!" replied the daughter. "The butcher's boy left there this very afternoon. I saw him." "I'm afraid, my dear, he didn't leave anything more filling than a bill.
Now the worthy captain's widow, Mrs Shuckleford, had lived long enough in this world to find that human nature is a more powerful law even than parental obedience; she therefore took to heart just so much of her son's discourse as fitted with the one, and overlooked just so much as exacted the latter.
But Reginald declined the invitation with thanks, and took up a comic paper, in which he attempted to bury himself, while Miss Shuckleford hammered out the latest polka on the piano, stopping abruptly and frequently enough to finish half a dozen rounds in the time it had taken him to dispose of two. Fresh games followed, and to all except the Crudens the evening passed merrily and happily.
Oh, please, have pity and tell me what you mean!" cried the poor mother, dropping back on to the sofa with a face as white as a sheet. "Come, don't take on," said Mrs Shuckleford, greatly disconcerted to see the effect of her delicate breaking of the news. "Perhaps it's not as bad as it seems." "Oh, what is it? what is it? I can't bear this suspense.
When Horace arrived shortly afterwards he found her still unconscious, with Mrs Shuckleford bathing her forehead, and tending her most gently. "You had better run for a doctor, 'Orace," whispered she, as the scared boy entered the room. "What is the matter? What has happened?" gasped he. "Poor dear, she's broken down she's But go quick for the doctor, 'Orace."
The tinkle of a piano upstairs, and the sound of Sam's voice, audible even in the street, announced only too unmistakably that the family was at home, and a collection of pot hats and shawls in the hall betrayed the appalling fact, when it was too late to retreat, that the Shucklefords had visitors! Mrs Shuckleford came out and received them with open arms.
She's setting her cap at him while she's making up to his ma; any flat might see that; but she's got to jack up the whole boiling now there. We needn't say any more about it." And, having finished his tea, Mr Samuel Shuckleford went down to his "club" to take part in a debate on "Cruelty to Animals."
How and when Horace and Shuckleford settled accounts no one exactly knew, but one evening, about a week afterwards, the latter came home looking very scared and uncomfortable, and announced that he was getting tired of London, the air of which did not agree with his constitution.
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