In her great surprise she did not smile, saying, as she gave him her hand, “Gavan! by all that’s wonderful!”
“You asked me to come and see you when I was next in London.”
“So I did.”
“So here I am. I had a day off by chance; some business that had to be seen to.”
“And your father?”
“Slowly going.”
“And you have come down here, for how long?”
“For as long as you’ll keep me. I needn’t go back till night.”
Her eye now wandered away from him to the maggots, one of whom, Gavan observed, had attached itself to her skirt, while a sufficiently dense crowd surrounded them, staring.
“You have a glimpse of our children,” said Eppie, surveying them with, not exactly a maternal, but, as it were, a fraternal eye of affectionate familiarity.