"--And have it she did.
"And I," thought Ernest to himself again when the arrangement was
concluded, "am the man who thought himself unlucky!"
I may as well say here all that need be said further about Ellen. For
the next three years she used to call regularly at Mr Ottery's every
Monday morning for her pound. She was always neatly dressed, and looked
so quiet and pretty that no one would have suspected her antecedents. At
first she wanted sometimes to anticipate, but after three or four
ineffectual attempts--on each of which occasions she told a most pitiful
story--she gave it up and took her money regularly without a word. Once
she came with a bad black eye, "which a boy had throwed a stone and hit
her by mistake"; but on the whole she looked pretty much the same at the
end of the three years as she had done at the beginning. Then she
explained that she was going to be married again. Mr Ottery saw her on
this, and pointed out to her that she would very likely be again
committing bigamy by doing so. "You may call it what you like," she
replied, "but I am going off to America with Bill the butcher's man, and
we hope Mr Pontifex won't be too hard on us and stop the allowance.
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