"When did they come?"
"Well;—to tell the truth, we found them here."
"The ——!" But Sir Thomas restrained the word on the right, or inside, of the teeth.
"They thought we were to be here a day sooner, and so they came on the Wednesday morning. They were to come, you know."
"I wish I knew when they were to go."
"You don't want to turn your own daughter out of your own house?"
"Why doesn't he get a house of his own for her? For her sake why doesn't he do it? He has the spending of £6,000 a year of my money, and yet I am to keep him! No;—I don't want to turn my daughter out of my house; but it'll end in my turning him out."
When a week had passed by Mr. Traffick had not been as yet turned out. Sir Thomas, when he came back to Merle Park on the following Friday, condescended to speak to his son-in-law, and to say something to him as to the news of the day; but this he did in an evident spirit of preconceived hostility. "Everything is down again," he said.
"Fluctuations are always common at this time of the year," said Traffick; "but I observe that trade always becomes brisk a little before Christmas."
"To a man with a fixed income, like you, it doesn't much matter," said Sir Thomas.