“Fanny, I wish I could do something for Abel.”
Fanny Dinks looked at Hope Wayne with an incredulous smile, and said,
“I thought once you would marry him; and so did he, I fancy.”
“What does he do? and how can I reach him?” asked Hope, entirely disregarding Fanny’s remark.
“He lives at the old place in Grand Street, I believe; the Lord knows how; I’m sure I don’t. I suppose he gambles when he isn’t drunk.”
“But about Congress?” inquired Hope.
“I don’t know any thing about that. Abel and father used to say that no gentleman would ever have any thing to do with politics; so I never heard any thing, and I’m sure I don’t know what he’s going to do.”
Fanny apparently supposed her last remark would end the conversation. Not that she wished to end it—not that she was sorry to see Hope Wayne again and to talk with her—not that she wanted or cared for any thing in particular, no, not even for her lord and master, who burst into the room with an oath, as usual, and with his small, swinish eyes heavy with drowsiness.
The master of the house was evidently just down. He wore a dirty morning-gown, and slippers down at the heel, displaying his dirty stockings. He came in yawning and squeezing his eves together.
“Why the h—— don’t that slut of a waiter have my coffee ready?” he said to his wife, who paid no more attention to him than to the lamp on the mantle, but, on the contrary, appeared to Hope to be a little more indifferent than before.