Poor Launcie! I saw him once at a ball in Kendal.
Are you sure he was drowned?"
"I followed him to Whitehaven, and found out that he had gone away in a
ship that never came home. Mother and Launcie were in bad bread when he
left, and she never fretted for him as she did for Tom."
"Why did you not tell me all this before?"
"I said to myself, there's time enough yet to be planning husbands for
girls that haven't a thought of the kind. We were very happy with them;
I couldn't bear to break things up; and I never once feared about Steve
Latrigg, not I."
"What does your brother and his wife say?"
"Tom is with me. As for his wife, I know nothing of her, and she knows
nothing of us. She has been in England a good many times, but she never
said she would like to come and see us, and my mother never wanted to
see her; so there wasn't a compliment wasted, you see. Eh? What?"
"No, I don't see, William. All about it is in a muddle, and I must say I
never heard tell of such ways. It is like offering your own flesh and
blood for sale. And to people who want nothing to do with us. I'm
astonished at you, squire."
"Don't go on so, Alice. Tom and I never had any falling out. He just got
out of the way of writing. He likes India, and he had his own reasons
for not liking England in any shape you could offer England to him.
There's no back reckonings between Tom and me, and he'll be glad for
Julius to come to his own people.
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