Leonard had gone away to work in Birmingham.

One week-end when he was home she had said to him: "You don't look very well, my lad." "I dunno," he said.

"I feel anyhow or nohow, ma." He called her "ma" already in his boyish fashion.
"Are you sure they're good lodgings ?" she asked.
"Yes--yes.

Only--it's a winder when you have to pour your own tea out--an' nobody to grouse if you team it in your saucer and sup it up.
It somehow takes a' the taste out of it." Mrs.Morel laughed.
"And so it knocks you up ?" she said.
"I dunno.

I want to get married," he blurted, twisting his fingers and looking down at his boots.