“Now, now, woman,—do attend to me. It is impossible that my valuable time can be wasted in this manner. Who is that child's father?”
“Yes, yes,” echoed Mr. Longstaff, tapping the poor woman in joyful expectation upon the shoulder; “just say the word, and have done with it.”
Every eye was fixed on Mrs. Clink. After a brief pause, during which the tears yet remaining in her eyes were hastily dried up with the corner of her shawl, she raised her head with a feeling of confidence scarcely to be expected, and directing her eyes through the little palisadoes which stopped the wooden partition full at Mr. Skinwell, she said, in a voice sufficiently loud to be heard by all present,—
“If you please, sir, it is Mr. Longstaff, the steward.”
The office was amazed; while Mr. Longstaff himself started up in an attitude of mute astonishment, which Chantrey himself could scarcely have represented.
“Longstaff, the steward!” ejaculated Skin-well.
“Impossible!” observed Dr. Rowel.
“It's false!” muttered the clerk.
“It is false!” repeated the accused man in a faint voice. “Why, gentlemen,—a man with a wife and family,—in my situation;—it's monstrous and diabolical. If I could pull your tongue across your teeth,” he continued, turning to Colin's mother, and shaking his fist in her face, “I'd cure it and hang it up, as an eternal example to such arrant liars. You know I'm as innocent as a March lamb,—you do, you deceitful woman!”