‘What fun!’ whispered one of the new-comers.—It was Wisbottle.
‘Glorious!’ replied his companion, in an equally low tone.—This was Alfred Tomkins. ‘Who would have thought it?’
‘I told you so,’ said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whisper. ‘Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention for the last two months. I saw ’em when I was sitting at the piano to-night.’
‘Well, do you know I didn’t notice it?’ interrupted Tomkins.
‘Not notice it!’ continued Wisbottle. ‘Bless you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I’ll swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed.’
‘They’re talking of us!’ exclaimed the agonised Mrs. Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situation, flashed upon her mind.
‘I know it—I know it,’ replied Evenson, with a melancholy consciousness that there was no mode of escape.
‘What’s to be done? we cannot both stop here!’ ejaculated Mrs. Tibbs, in a state of partial derangement.
‘I’ll get up the chimney,’ replied Evenson, who really meant what he said.
‘You can’t,’ said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair. ‘You can’t—it’s a register stove.’