The Alington Inheritance

Je

“No, thank you,” she said. “I can manage what I’ve got quite nicely.”

But when she got out of the shop, there was Dicky beside her.

“You staying with Miss Danesworth?” he said brightly.

“Yes, I am.”

Je

He walked along beside her scuffing up the dust with his toes. He hadn’t made up his mind yet. It didn’t do to be in a hurry, and he would want to make out what he was going to say very carefully. It wouldn’t do to make a mistake. As he went, he thought and kept on smiling. That was a very good dodge with the soap. His mother hadn’t noticed anything at all, and she hadn’t missed the tiddy little bits. He smiled benignly as he thought of how he had got up and chewed on those little bits. They had a fu

What he hadn’t been able to make out at the time was the address on the note he had been given-“Miss Je

That’s what he had thought at the time, but then afterwards-after that chatterin’ old body that worked for Mrs. Merridew had had her say -he did see different about it. Only he didn’t quite know what he’d got to think. Least said soonest mended. Je

Je

“What did you say?”

He looked at her with that carefree i

“Ow, nothin’-nothin’. It was just a name as took my fancy. Did you ever hear it afore?”

Je

“Ow? Why did you change it?”

Je

“You want to know too much.”

“It’s interestin’-that’s why I want to know.” The blue eyes gazed limpidly into hers. She found herself explaining, which she hadn’t meant to do.

“Well, sometimes you grow up with a name and you think it’s really yours, and then you find out that it isn’t.”

“It isn’t what?” said Dicky, deeply interested.

“It isn’t yours at all,” said Je

When she came to think about it afterwards, she simply couldn’t imagine what had made her say it. She didn’t know that she was not the only one to say things which she regretted afterwards under Dicky’s i

“That’s very interestin’,” said Dicky. He removed the gaze and fell to thinking about the note. After a moment he said, “Then if there was a note with Miss Je

Je

“It would be for me. Why do you want to know?”

The blue gaze turned interestedly in her direction again.

“Ow, I was just wonderin’.”

Je

She never had been Je

“Why were you wondering?”

The blue eyes never moved from her face. He scuffed with his feet in the dust.

“Ow, I just was.”

She said, “Dicky, I want an answer, and a true one. How did you know that I had been called Je

“Everyone knows. It isn’t only me-honest it isn’t. That there Mrs. Warrington as works for Mrs. Merridew, she’s the one that got hold of it. Proper nosey parker she is, and what she knows everyone knows. Come to think of it, there’s somethin’ excitin’ about havin’ two names. I mean, everyone knows as you have one before you’re married an’ one after, but I never heard of no one else as was single an’ had two names. That’s why I was interested.”

It was quite possible. Only Je

“If you know anything about a note for me you had better tell me what it is.”

The i

“I never said nothin’ about a note for you. I couldn’t, seein’ as how there wasn’t one, could I?”

Je

“You couldn’t have said it if there really wasn’t one-I know that. But you said-you did say, ‘Then if there was a note with Miss Je

“I said that?”

“Yes, you said that. I want to know what you meant by it.”

“I didn’t mean anythin’. You’re not angry, miss, are you? I didn’t mean no harm.”

“I don’t say you did. I just want to know why you said it.”

Dicky thought that this had gone on long enough. He had two accomplishments. The wide blue gaze was one of them. He thought the time had come for the other. He let his lids fall and squeezed them down upon his eyes, at the same time he clenched his hands. A gush of tears followed. It was a very useful trick. If the wide-eyed gaze did not prevail, the gush of tears could be relied upon. But Je

“I didn’t mean no harm,” said Dicky with a most effective catch in his breath.

“I want to know why you said it.”

Dicky stood rubbing his eyes.

“I didn’t mean no harm. I du

And as Je

Je