"And he was to have been mayor in November, wasn't he? How
disappointing for him."
"I expect he's got something else to think about," said Denry.
After a pause Nellie asked suddenly:
"Who'll be mayor--now?"
"Well," said Denry, "his Worship Councillor Barlow, J.P., will be
extremely cross if _he_ isn't."
"How horrid!" said Nellie, frankly. "And he's got nobody at all to be
mayoress."
"Mrs Prettyman would be mayoress," said Denry. "When there's no wife or
daughter, it's always a sister if there is one."
"But can you _imagine_ Mrs Prettyman as mayoress? Why, they say she
scrubs her own doorstep--after dark. They ought to make you mayor."
"Do you fancy yourself as mayoress?" he inquired.
"I should be better than Mrs Prettyman, anyhow."
"I believe you'd make an A1 mayoress," said Denry.
"I should be frightfully nervous," she confidentially admitted.
"I doubt it," said he.
The fact was, that since her return to Bursley from the honeymoon,
Nellie was an altered woman. She had acquired, as it were in a day, to
an astonishing extent, what in the Five Towns is called "a nerve."
"I should like to try it," said she.
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