"Very likely," answered Mr. Stopper, dryly. "Good-night, Mrs. Boxall. And as the keys must have an unpleasant look after what has happened, I'll just put them in my pocket and take them home with me."
"Do ye that, Mr. Stopper. And good-night to you. And if the young man comes back to-morrow, don't 'ee take no notice of what's come and gone. If you're sure he took it, you can keep it off his salary, with a wink for a warning, you know."
"All right, ma'am," said Mr. Stopper, taking his departure in less good humor than he showed.
I will not say much about Lucy's feelings. For some time she was so stunned by the blow as to be past conscious suffering. Then commenced a slow oscillation of feeling: for one half hour, unknown to her as time, she would be declaring him unworthy of occasioning her trouble; for the next she would be accusing his attachment to her, and her own want of decision in not absolutely refusing to occupy the questionable position in which she found herself, as the combined causes of his ruin: for as ruin she could not but regard such a fall as his. She had no answer to her letter—heard nothing of him all day, and in the evening her grandmother brought her the statement of Mr. Stopper that Thomas had not been there. She turned her face away toward the wall, and her grandmother left her, grumbling at girls generally, and girls in love especially. Meantime a cherub was on its way toward her, bearing a little bottle of comfort under its wing.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MATTIE FALLS AND RISES AGAIN.
Mattie had expected Lucy to call for her in the forenoon and take her out to Wyvil Place to see Miriam. Spending the morning with her father in the shop, amidst much talk, conducted with the most respectful docility on the part of the father, and a good deal of condescending assertion on the part of the child, she had run out twenty times to look at the clock at St. Jacob's; and at length, finding that Lucy did not come, had run up and knocked at her door, giving Mr. Spelt a promissory nod as she passed. Hearing from Mrs. Boxall, however, that Miss Burton was too tired to go out with her, she turned in some disappointment, and sought Mr. Spelt.
"Well, mother, how do you do?" she asked, perking up her little gray face, over which there was now a slight wash of rose-color, toward the watch-tower of the tailor.
"Quite well, Mattie. And you look well," answered Mr. Spelt.