eeth white
and even. She was on the shady side of forty, but looked ten years
younger. Her customers admired her and loved to exchange a little coarse
badinage in which the good woman more than held her own.

There was a Mr. Fenton somewhere in the world, but his wife was quite
indifferent to his existence. He might be in the West Indian plantations
or the hulks for what she cared. She had always gone her own way and
meant to do so to the end of her days.

Apparently she was not in the best of tempers this morning. A drover who
attempted to jest with her was unmercifully snubbed, and so also was a
master butcher from Marylebone, who as a rule was received with favour.
But the lady was not in an ill temper with everybody--certainly not with
the stolid farmer-like man who was plodding his way through a rumpsteak
washed down by small beer.

The coffee shop was divided into boxes and the farmer-like man was
seated in one near the door which opened into the kitchen. Mrs. Fenton
had constantly to pass in and out and his seat was conveniently placed
so as to permit her to bestow a smile upon him as she went by or to
exchange a hurried word.

"The mistress is a bit sweet in that quarter, eh?" whispered a customer
with a jerk of the head and a wink to Hannah the waitress, whom Mrs.
Fenton had brought with her from Bedfordbury.

"I should just think she was," returned the girl contemptuously. "It
makes one sick. She ought to be a done with sweetheartin'."

"A woman's never too old for that, my girl, as you'll find when you're
her age. She might do worse. Dobson's got a tidy little purse put by.
There aren't many in the market as does better than him. He's brought up
twenty head o' cattle from his farm at Romford an' he'll sell 'em all
afore night--money down on the nail, mind ye. That'll buy Mistress
Fenton a few fallals if she's a mind for 'em."

"An' if she's fool enough. Why, he isn't much more than half her years
and she with a grown up daughter too."

"Aye. May be the gal 'ud be more a match for Dobson than her mother."

"Don't you let my mistress hear you say that. Why she's that jealous of
Lavinia she could bite the girl's head off. My! Well I never!"

Hannah started visibly and fixed her eyes on the entrance.

"What's the matter, wench?" growled the man.

"I don't believe in ghosts," returned the girl, paling a little and her
hands trembling in a fashion which rather belied her words, "or I'd say
as I'd just