grumbled. "You don't think about me. It's all him now."
The woman did not answer. She knew it to be the truth.
He was a good man, hard-working, sober and kind in his fretful, complaining way. Her people and she herself, had thought she had done well when she had married him. She had been in service, looked down upon by her girl acquaintances who were earning their living in factories and shops; and he had been almost a gentleman, though it was difficult to remember that now. The Strong'nth'arms had once been prosperous yeomen and had hunted with the gentry. Rumour had it that scattered members of the family were even now doing well in the colonies, and both husband and wife still cherished the hope that some far-flung relation would providentially die and leave them a fortune. Otherwise the future promised little more than an everlasting struggle against starvation. He had started as a mechanical engineer in his own workshop. There were plenty of jobs for such in Millsborough, but John Strong'nth'arm seemed to be one of those born unfortunates doomed always to choose instinctively the wrong turning. An inventor of a kind. Some of his ideas had prospered—other people.
