“Well, then, I don’t see why you look so.”
“I’ve finished the task I was to do.”
“What! you haven’t”—
“I’m out of employment.”
They went and sat down on the little hair-cloth sofa that Mrs. Riley had just left.
“I thought they said they would have other work for you.”
“They said they might have; but it seems they haven’t.”
“And it’s just in the opening of summer, too,” said Mary; “why, what right”—
“Oh!”—a despairing gesture and averted gaze—“they’ve a perfect right if they think best. I asked them that myself at first—not too politely, either; but I soon saw I was wrong.”
They sat without speaking until it had grown quite dark. Then John said, with a long breath, as he rose:—