"It's late," she said, rising.
"But you're empty, my dear. And to think o' going to bed without a dinner, or your tea, and no supper! You'll never say prayers, if you do," said Mrs. Sumfit.
The remark engendered a notion in the farmer's head, that Anthony promised to be particularly prayerless.
"You've been and spent a night at the young squire's, I hear, brother Tony. All right and well. No complaints on my part, I do assure ye. If you're mixed up with that family, I won't bring it in you're anyways mixed up with this family; not so as to clash, do you see. Only, man, now you are here, a word'd be civil, if you don't want a doctor."
"I was right," murmured Mrs. Sumfit. "At the funeral, he was; and Lord be thanked! I thought my eyes was failin'. Mas' Gammon, you'd ha' lost no character by sidin' wi' me."
"Here's Dahlia, too," said the farmer. "Brother Tony, don't you see her?
She's beginning to be recognizable, if her hair'd grow a bit faster.
She's…well, there she is."
A quavering, tiny voice, that came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye do—how d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony did not cast eye on Dahlia.
"Will you eat, man?—will you smoke a pipe?—won't you talk a word?—will you go to bed?"
These several questions, coming between pauses, elicited nothing from the staring oldman.
"Is there a matter wrong at the Bank?" the farmer called out, and Anthony jumped in a heap.