The old gentleman tightened his lips, and looked at his wife; and the old lady tightened hers, and looked at her husband; but neither spoke.
“I see,” I said; then, turning the conversation, “you have been at this for years?”
“Fifteen ma’am,” said the old lady. “You see, when our poor—”
“Don’t trouble the lady about that,” said the old man, with appeal in his voice; but the old lady liked to talk, and went on—
“When our poor Mary died—aged nineteen, ma’am, and as beautiful a girl as ever you saw, and used to help us in the business, keeping the books and writing letters—all seemed to go wrong, and at last we sold out for the best we could make of it, and that just paid our debts—”
“All but Tompkins’ bill,” said the old man correcting.
“Yes, all but Tompkins’ bill,” said the old lady; “but that we paid afterwards. We should have had to go to the parish, only an aunt of mine died and left us a bit of property that brings us in ten shillings a week; which is enough for us so long as we don’t pay rent and taxes.”
“That’s how we came to be here,” said the old gentleman, smiling sadly at his wife, “and we’ve seen some strange changes since; living in houses where people died of fevers; in old houses; in new houses that ought to be knocked down by Act of Parliament, they’re so bad; in houses where the people’s been extravagant, and gone to ruin. But there, it does for us while we’re here.”
He looked at his wife on this, and the old lady placed her thin veiny hand on his arm, telling, by that one action, of trust, love, and faith in her old companion over a very stony path; and I left them together trying very hard to close the front door, the old man’s last words being—
“It sticks so, on account of the wood warping, and that great crack”—the said crack being one from the first to the second-floor.