“But I can often help you in that way,” I said, “and I will.”
We went down soon after to a late supper, Hallett jealously locking up his attic before we descended. Mrs Hallett had gone to bed and Linny was reading, and jumped up as if startled at our entrance.
Hallett spoke to her as we sat down to supper, and I noticed that he seemed to be cold and stern towards her, while Linny was excited and pettish, seeming to resent her brother’s ways, and talked to me in a light, pleasant, bantering manner about Bluebeard’s secret chamber.
I noticed, too, that she always avoided her brother’s eye, and when we parted that night Hallett seemed a good deal troubled, though he did not tell me why.
Chapter Twenty Five.
Seven-and-a-Half and a Bonus.
It was the common talk at the office that Mr Lister was going to be married soon to the rich Miss Carr; and one day, when I was busily reading to Mr Jabez Rowle—who, snuff-box before him, kept drawing in his breath, hissing viciously, and sometimes smacking his lips as he dug his pen into some blunder in the slips before him—Mr Grimstone came bustling in, with his spectacles shining as much as his bald head, his scanty hair standing straight up, and, what was very rarely the case, a smile upon his face.
“Well, Rowle,” he said, rubbing his hands, “how is it this morning?”