May turned and shook hands with him.
“It’s absurd for me to thank you for all you are doing,” she said. “You do all sorts of things which my father couldn’t possibly do, and which we have no right to expect.”
“Surely that is a curate’s business,” he said, laughing, and taking off his hat.
Mr. Markham was suffering from a slight cold, and he had not been out that day. He was sitting over the fire in the drawing-room, reading a comedy of Aristophanes, when May came in.
“How cold you look!” he said. “I ordered tea as you were a little late.”
“Yes; I couldn’t come before, father,” she said, “and even now I have only got through half the things I wanted to do.”
“Never mind, dear; but you should make an effort to be punctual; and charity begins at home, eh, May?”
May turned from the fire, where she had been warming her hands, and poured out a cup of tea. Her father, seeing he got no answer, continued somewhat reproachfully—
“My cold is rather worse this evening, and I can’t think what you did with that medicine. I couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“I put it on the table in your study.”