"Thank you; but I was going to say—"
"A little more sugar?"
"No, no. But I cannot place a morsel in my lips, Mrs. Ragg, or think or speak to you of anything else, until you have told me if you have heard any news of poor—poor—"
"Tobias?"
"Yes—yes—yes!"
Minna Gray placed her two little hands upon her face and burst into tears. Mrs. Ragg made a snuffling sort of noise that, no doubt, was highly sympathetic, and after a pause of a few moments' duration, Minna gathered courage to speak again.
"You know, Mrs. Ragg, the last you told me of him was that—that Mr. Todd had said he was mad, you know, and then you went to fetch somebody, and when you came back he was gone; and Mr. Todd told you the next day that poor Tobias ran off at great speed and disappeared. Has anything been heard of him since?"
"Ah, my dear, alas! alas!"
"Why do you cry alas?—Have you any more sad news to tell me?"
"He was my only son—and all the world and his wife, as the saying is, can't tell how much I loved him."