“Dear me, Jem! What has come over you? You heard what I said a few minutes ago.”
“I didn’t suppose you’d really mind, mother. Besides, I want to tell father about leaving Mr. Graves’s, and to ask him what I’d better do next.”
“Jem! How thoughtless you are, to be sure! Now, do you think, when father comes in tired, as he certainly will be, between twelve and one at night, he will want to be worried by your affairs? There, no more, Jem. Go along at once.”
Very slowly and reluctantly, and wearing a sulky expression which meant that he thought himself ill-used, Jem departed, though all the time he was so sleepy he had hardly been able to hold his eyes open for a quarter of an hour past.
Edith and Bessie were sleeping soundly when Madge went up. She stood for a few minutes looking at them, as they lay side by side, for there was enough moonlight to show their faces quite plainly to eyes that had grown accustomed to the darkness.
“How pretty they are like that!” thought Madge, with an elder sister’s affection. “What dear little things they are too, in spite of their faults, when one comes to think about it!”
Then she undressed, said her prayers, and crept in beside Bessie, so weary after seventeen hours of hard toil that almost as soon as her head touched the pillow she was in a dreamless sleep.
Before long the whole house was wrapped in a peaceful stillness, as one after another of its occupants lay down and forgot all fatigues, anxieties, longings for money, aches and pains, in pleasant visions or calm unconsciousness.
And the poor mother down-stairs? She drew the lamp nearer, now that there was no one else to share its light, and stitched away at her mending, the click of her needle on the thimble being almost as regular as the “tick-tack” of the little clock on the mantelpiece.
Ungrateful little clock that it was! It had always been treated well and kindly, and wound up every night, in spite of its not telling the exact truth, and now Mr. Kayll had just cleaned it, oiled its works, and set it going again; yet, such is the ingratitude of clocks, it set itself to work to make poor Mrs. Kayll uncomfortable, by compelling her to notice how fast the time was going. It would not even strike twelve quietly, but gave a warning growl first, to attract her attention, and then hammered out twelve distinct “tings,” that sounded twice as loud as usual.