‘Good gracious me!’ said Cherry, in a petulant manner. ‘You can tell her yourself, if you wish, can’t you?’
‘She seems to make such game of one,’ replied Mr Jonas.
‘Then why need you trouble yourself about her?’ said Charity. ‘I am sure she doesn’t trouble herself much about you.’
‘Don’t she though?’ asked Jonas.
‘Good gracious me, need I tell you that she don’t?’ returned the young lady.
Mr Jonas made no verbal rejoinder, but he glanced at Mercy with an odd expression in his face; and said that wouldn’t break his heart, she might depend upon it. Then he looked on Charity with even greater favour than before, and besought her, as his polite manner was, to ‘come a little closer.’
[Original]
‘There’s another thing that’s not easily overdone, father,’ remarked Jonas, after a short silence.
‘What’s that?’ asked the father; grinning already in anticipation.