“What, that I never married?” he said sharply.
“No, no; oh, dear me, no!” cried Miss Heathery; “I mean that poor Mrs Hallam is terribly troubled about money matters, and that they are very much in debt?”
“Don’t know, ma’am; can’t say, ma’am; not my business, ma’am.”
“But they say the doctor is terribly pinched for money too.”
“Very likely, ma’am. Every one is sometimes.”
“How dreadful!” exclaimed Miss Heathery.
“Very, ma’am. No: nothing more, thank you. Get these things taken away, I want to talk to you.”
As the repast was cleared away, Miss Heathery felt that it was coming now, and as she grew more flushed, her head with its curls and great tortoise-shell comb trembled like a flower on its stalk. She got out her work, growing more and more agitated, but noticing that Thickens grew more cold and self-possessed.
“The way of a great man,” she thought to herself as she felt that she had led up to what was coming, and that she had never before been so wicked and daring in the whole course of her life.
“It was the violets,” she said to herself; and then she started, trembled more than ever, and felt quite faint, for James Thickens drew his chair a little nearer, spread his handkerchief carefully across his drab legs, and said suddenly: