sence, and packed themselves off
in dishonorable haste. Had it not been that two men friends of his own
were ready to come at an hour's notice the house would have been
servantless till he had procured strangers. No condemnation could be
too severe for Mrs. Courage and Jane, for not content with leaving the
house in dudgeon they had insulted the young lydy before they went.

"Sooner or lyter they would 'a' went any'ow. For this long time back
they've been too big for their boots, as you might sye. If Mr. Rash
'ad married the other young lydy she wouldn't 'a' stood 'em a week. It
don't do to keep servants too long, not when they've got no more than
a menial mind, which Jynie and Mrs. Courage 'aven't. The minute they
'eard that this young lydy was in the 'ouse.... And beautiful the wye
she took it, Mr. Rash. I never see nothink finer on the styge nor in
the movin' pictures. Like a young queen she was, a-tellin' 'em that
she 'adn't come to this 'ouse to turn out of it them as 'ad 'ad it as
their 'ome, like, and that she'd put it up to them. If they went she'd
stye; but if they styed she'd go----"

"She's going anyhow."

Steptoe moved away to feel the fastenings of the back windows.
"That'll be a relief to us, sir, won't it?" he said, without turning
his head.

"It'll make things easier--certainly."

"I was just 'opin' that it mightn't be--well, not too soon."

"What do you mean by too soon?"

"Well, sir, I've been thinkin' it over through the dye, just as you
told me to do this mornin,' and I figger out--" on a table near him he
began to arrange the disordered books and magazines--"I figger out
that if she was to go it'd better be in a wye agreeable to all
concerned. It wouldn't do, I syes to myself, for Mr. Rash to bring a
young woman into this 'ouse and 'ave 'er go awye feelin' anythink but
glad she'd come."

"That'll be some job."

"It'll be some job, sir; but it'll be worth it. It ain't only on the
young lydy's account; it'll be on Mr. Rash's."

"On Mr. Rash's--how?"

The magazines lapping over each other in two long lines, he
straightened them with little pats. "What I suppose you mean to do,
sir, is to get out o' this matrimony and enter into the other as you
thought as you wasn't goin' to enter into."

"Well?"

"And when you'd entered into the other you wouldn't want it on your
mind--on your conscience, as you might sye--that there was a young
lydy in the world as you'd done a kind o' wrong to."