“Hush, hush, wife!” said Warner. “I speak I apprehend to Gerard’s daughter?”
“Just so.”
“Ah! this is good and kind; this is like old times, for Walter Gerard was my friend, when I was not exactly as I am now.”
“He tells me so: he sent a messenger to me last night to visit you this morning. Your letter reached him only yesterday.”
“Harriet was to give it to Caroline,” said the wife. “That’s the girl who has done all the mischief and inveigled her away. And she has left Trafford’s works, has she? Then I will be bound she and Harriet are keeping house together.”
“You suffer?” said Sybil, moving to the bed-side of the woman; “give me your hand,” she added in a soft sweet tone. “‘Tis hot.”
“I feel very cold,” said the woman. “Warner would have the window open, till the rain came in.”
“And you, I fear, are wet,” said Warner, addressing Sybil, and interrupting his wife.
“Very slightly. And you have no fire. Ah! I have brought some things for you, but not fuel.”
“If he would only ask the person down stairs,” said his wife, “for a block of coal; I tell him, neighbours could hardly refuse; but he never will do anything; he says he has asked too often.”