Endeavour?--they say it does. They say it makes a nice
bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ay, it is. Perhaps it won't be
now Mr. Houghton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he _will_ leave
much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged up to the
hilt. He'll leave debts, you see if he doesn't. What is she going to
do then? She'll have to go out of Manchester House--her and Miss
Pinnegar. Wonder what she'll do. Perhaps she'll take up that
nursing. She never made much of that, did she--and spent a sight of
money on her training, they say. She's a bit like her father in the
business line--all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up
and marry her. I don't know, she doesn't seem to hook on, does she?
Why she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged
once. Ay, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was
on. Can you remember she went with Albert Witham for a bit. Did she?
No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, you
know, learning for his head master's place. Why didn't she marry him
then? Perhaps he never asked her. Ay, there's that to it. She'd have
looked down her nose at him, times gone by. Ay, but that's all over,
my boy. She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that
manager. Why, _that's_ something awful. Haven't you ever watched her
in the Cinema? She never lets him alone. And it's anybody alike. Oh,
she doesn't respect herself. I don't consider. No girl who respected
herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every feller's
head. Does she, though? Ay, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy
age, though. She's not much chance of getting off. How old do you
reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she
_looks_ it. She does beguy--a dragged old maid. Oh but she
sprightles up a bit sometimes. Ay, when she thinks she's hooked on
to somebody. I wonder why she never did take? It's funny. Oh, she
was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants
her. And she's got no relations to go to either, has she? No, that's
her father's cousin who she's walking with. Look, they're coming.
He's a fine-looking man, isn't he? You'd have thought they'd have
buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Houghton. You would, wouldn't you? I
should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was
made for both of them. Ay, she was a lot more of a mother to her
than her own mother. She _was_ good to them, Miss Frost was. Alvin