“How do you find papa looking?” asked she, hurriedly, as a deep blush covered her face. “Is he as well as you hoped to see him?”
“No,” said he, bluntly; “he has grown thin and careworn. Older by ten years than I expected to find him.”
“He has been much fretted of late; independently of being separated from you, he has had many anxieties.”
“I have heard something of this; more, indeed, than I like to believe true. Is it possible, May, that he intends to marry?”
She nodded twice slowly, without speaking.
“And his wife is to be this Mrs. Morris,—this widow that I remember at Marlia, long ago?”
“And who is now here domesticated with us.”
“What do you know of her? What does any one know of her?” asked he, impatiently.
“Absolutely nothing,—that is, of her history, her family, or her belongings. Of herself I can only say that she is supreme in this house; her orders alone are obeyed. I have reason to believe that papa confides the gravest interests to her charge, and for myself, I obey her by a sort of instinct.”
“But you like her, May?”