SCENE II]
MRS. HOLROYD
29
- brute, he was. This is the first time I ’ve been out; it ’s a’most the first laugh I ’ve had for a year.
Laura
- It ’s true, what she says. We thought she ’d go out of ’er mind. She never spoke a word for a fortnight.
Clara
- Though he’s only been dead for two months, he was a brute to me. I was as nice a young girl as you could wish when I married him and went to the Fleece Inn—I was.
Laura
- Killed hisself drinking. An’ she ’s that excitable, she is. We s’ll ’ave an awful time with ’er to-morrow, I know.
Mrs. Holroyd (coldly)
- I don’t know why I should hear all this.
Clara
- I know I must ’ave seemed awful. An’ them children —are n’t they nice little things, Laura?
Laura
- They are that.
Holroyd (entering from the door)
- Hanna you about done theer?
Clara
- My word, if this is the way you treat a lady when she comes to see you. (She rises)
Holroyd
- I ’ll see you down th’ line.
Clara
- You ’re not coming a stride with us.
Laura
- We ’ve got no hat, neither of us.
