"Much the same as usual. I think she has borne the first of the cold weather better than she did last year."
"I do so wish that I knew her."
"Perhaps you will some day. But I don't suppose that you ever will."
"Why not?"
"It's not likely that you'll ever come to Plaistow now;—and Mary never leaves it except to go to my uncle's."
Clara instantly knew that he had heard of her engagement, though she could not imagine from what source he had heard it. There was something in the tone of his voice,—something especially in the expression of that word "now," which told her that it must be so. "I should be so glad to go there if I could," she said, with that special hypocrisy which belongs to women, and is allowed to them; "but, of course, I cannot leave papa in his present state."
"And if you did leave him you would not go to Plaistow."
"Not unless you and Mary asked me."
"And you wouldn't if we did. How could you?"
"What do you mean, Will? It seems as though you were almost savage to me."