“It is very foolish to sit down to draw directly after dinner in such hot weather as this,” observed Hester, struggling with tears which would come, she could scarcely have told why.
“My dear little woman, you are quite nervous and overworked and ill. You must go down to your mother, and see if she and Haleham cannot set you right again.”
Hester looked up at her husband, with a cheek no longer pale. He went on,—
“No time like the present. I will send and have your place taken by the early morning coach.”
“O, how very good you are!” cried Hester. “You cannot think—I am sure it will do me more good than—O, Edgar, you do not know how I have longed this summer to see those meadows again!”
“Well; you shall see them before to-morrow evening.”
“Had it not better be one day later?” inquired Hester, timidly, knowing that her husband did not like being opposed in any of his determinations. “It might be an inconvenience to my mother to have me go without notice; and I cannot get all my things together to-night; and one day more will finish these drawings.”
Edgar said if she meant to go at all, it must be the next morning.
“I should be paid for these to-morrow, if I carried them home myself,” once more urged Hester, thus intimating at the same time that she was bare of cash.
“Leave all that to me,” replied Edgar, good-humouredly. “I will take care and get your due out of your employer.”