"But if we can't go to her," said Mrs. Lethbridge, "Laura"—which was Mrs. Farebrother's Christian name—"can come to us."
This, also, after a little while, Miser Farebrother would not allow.
"I will not," he said, "have my affairs talked about by people who are not friendly to me."
"That is your fancy," said Mrs. Farebrother; "they would be very happy if you would allow them to be friendly."
"Of course," he sneered, "so that they could poke their heads into my business. I tell you I will not have it."
She sighed, and submitted; and thereafter, when she and her sister met, it was by appointment in a strange place. Even these rare meetings, upon their being discovered, were prohibited, and thus Miser Farebrother succeeded in parting two sisters who loved each other devotedly.
"Whatever Laura saw in that miserly bear," said Mrs. Lethbridge, indignantly, to her husband, "to marry him is a mystery I shall never be able to discover."
But this mystery is of a nature common enough in the matrimonial market, and may be attributed to thousands of ill-assorted couples.
It was plainly Miser Farebrother's intention to discourage Mrs. Lethbridge's visits to Parksides after the death of his wife; promises were in no sense sacred to him, even death-bed promises, unless their performance was necessary to his interests, and in this instance he very soon decided that it was not.
"You perceive," he said to Mrs. Lethbridge, "that I have a housekeeper to look after the child. You are giving yourself a deal of unnecessary trouble trudging down here—for what? To ascertain whether she is properly dressed? You see she is. Whether she has enough to eat? She looks well enough, doesn't she? Don't you think you had better devote yourself to your own domestic affairs instead of prying into mine? Your husband must be very rich that you can afford to pay railway fares and cab fares to come to a house where you are not wanted."