‘Ah, that is another thing. I was thinking,’ says Susan gently, ‘of the girl in there’—nodding towards the Cottage. ‘It must be a very sad thing to have no one belonging to you.’
‘Sad indeed! But you must not let your sympathy for her run too far afield. If not a father or mother, she must have—other ties.’
‘Brothers, you mean, or sisters?’
‘Yes, just so—brothers or sisters. They’ll turn up presently, no doubt.’
He looks at her as if waiting for an inspiration, and then it comes to him.
‘What a sympathetic mind you have!’ says he. ‘And yet you don’t give me a share of it. You have known me quite a long time now, and I have no father or mother, yet you have not wept with me.’
‘I didn’t know,’ says Susan. ‘And, besides, there was no long time, surely. Father told us you had no father or mother, but—have you’—with hesitation—‘no people belonging to you, Mr. Crosby?’
‘One sister,’ says he.
‘One sister! And why doesn’t she live with you?’
‘Ah, you must ask her that. Perhaps she wouldn’t care about it.’