“I think it’s very hard,” said she, querulously.
It was useless for Lawrence to argue. He saw it, and merely remarked,
“The house will be sold, and you’ll give up the carriage and live as plainly as you can.”
“To think of coming to this!” burst out Mrs. Newt afresh.
But a noise was heard in the hall, and the door opened to admit Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Dinks.
It was the first time they had entered her father’s house since her marriage. May, who had been the last person Fanny had seen in her old home, ran forward to greet her, and said, cheerfully,
“Welcome home, Fanny.”
Mrs. Dinks looked defiantly about the room. Her keen black eyes saw every body, and involuntarily every body looked at her—except her father. He seemed quite unconscious of any new-comers. Alfred’s heavy figure dropped into a chair, whence his small eyes, grown sullen, stared stupidly about. Mrs. Newt merely said, hurriedly, “Why Fanny!” and looked, from the old habit of alarm and apprehension, at her husband, then back again to her daughter. The silence gradually became oppressive, until Fanny broke it by saying, in a dull tone,
“Oh! Uncle Lawrence.”
He simply bowed his head, as if it had been a greeting. Mr. Bennet’s foot twitched rather than wagged, and his wife turned toward him, from time to time, with a tender smile. Mrs. Newt, like one at a funeral, presently began to weep afresh.