"You're a good old chap, Job, and so's your father, but you'll both be doing me a favour if you'll stop any talk of that kind."
"No manner o' use?"
"No use at all."
"Well, I'm main sorry. An' so's feyther, I can tell ye."
Mrs Carew was sitting in a large chintz-covered armchair before the fire in her bedroom, when he was taken up to her by Mollie, who favoured him with her own diagnosis as they mounted the stairs.
"She's that bad again. Can't sleep and off her food. Ain't had hardly anything all day or yes'day. Just sits 'fore th' fire and mopes from morn'n till night. 'Taint natural for sure, for him 'at's gone weren't one to cry for, that's cert'n.... No, she don't complain of any pain or anything. Just sits and mopes and cries on the quiet 's if her heart was broke. Sure she'd more cause to cry before he was took than what she has now."
When he entered the room he did not at first see her, so sunk down was she in the depths of the great ear-flapped chair.
She made no attempt to rise and greet him. When he stood beside her and quietly expressed his regret at finding her no better, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed convulsively.
She looked little more than a girl, slight and frail and forlorn, as she crouched there with hidden face, and he was truly sorry for her. It was impossible for him to keep the sympathy he felt entirely out of his voice.
"What can I do for you, Mrs Carew?" he asked quietly, and the forlorn figure shook again but made no response.