They did not quite realize how they
missed the shrieking, shouting lasses, whom they had known all their
lives and disliked so much.
Matilda and Emmie were already old maids. In a thorough industrial
district, it is not easy for the girls who have expectations above the
common to find husbands. The ugly industrial town was full of men, young
men who were ready to marry. But they were all colliers or pottery-hands,
mere workmen. The Rockley girls would have about ten thousand pounds each
when their father died: ten thousand pounds' worth of profitable
house-property. It was not to be sneezed at: they felt so themselves, and
refrained from sneezing away such a fortune on any mere member of the
proletariat. Consequently, bank-clerks or nonconformist clergymen or even
school-teachers having failed to come forward, Matilda had begun to give
up all idea of ever leaving the Pottery House.
Matilda was a tall, thin, graceful fair girl, with a rather large nose.
She was the Mary to Emmie's Martha: that is, Matilda loved painting and
music, and read a good many novels, whilst Emmie looked after the
house-keeping. Emmie was shorter, plumper than her sister, and she had no
accomplishments. She looked up to Matilda, whose mind was naturally
refined and sensible.
In their quiet, melancholy way, the two girls were happy. Their mother
was dead. Their father was ill also. He was an intelligent man who had
had some education, but preferred to remain as if he were one with the
rest of the working people.
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