“I'm only stopping for a day or two in London, uncle.”
“Ah! a wicked place; that it is. No wickeder than other places, I'll be bound. Well; I must be trotting. I can't sit, I tell you. You're as dark here as a gaol.”
“Let me ring for candles, uncle.”
“No; I'm going.”
She tried to touch him, to draw him to a chair. The agile old man bounded away from her, and she had to pacify him submissively before he would consent to be seated. The tea-service was brought, and Rhoda made tea, and filled a cup for him. Anthony began to enjoy the repose of the room. But it made the money-bags' alien to him, and serpents in his bosom. Fretting—on his chair, he cried: “Well! well! what's to talk about? We can't drink tea and not talk!”
Rhoda deliberated, and then said: “Uncle, I think you have always loved me.”
It seemed to him a merit that he should have loved her. He caught at the idea.
“So I have, Rhoda, my dear; I have. I do.”
“You do love me, dear uncle!”
“Now I come to think of it, Rhoda—my Dody, I don't think ever I've loved anybody else. Never loved e'er a young woman in my life. As a young man.”