Esther rose with a sigh, folded her cloak, laid it on a chair, placed her bonnet on top of it, and going over to the fireplace gazed into the flames.
Cherry's cooking frizzled and bubbled in the pan, Cherry's own head was bent over her book.
"This is the rarest fun," she exclaimed suddenly. "Didn't Lady Jane pay Sir Thomas out? Lord, it were prime. You never will read the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' Esther. Now I call them about the best things going. How white you do look. Well, it's a good thing you are in time for a bit of supper. I have fried eggs and tomatoes to-night, browned up a new way. Why don't you take your cloak and bonnet upstairs, Essie, and sit down easy like? It fidgets one to see you shifting from one foot to another all the time."
"I'm going out again in a minute," said Esther. "I came in early because I wanted my father. Oh, there's his latch-key in the door at last. Don't you come, Cherry. I want to speak to him by myself."
Cherry's hot face grew a little redder.
"I like that," she said to herself. "It's drudge, drudge with me—drudge, drudge from morning till night; and now she won't even tell me her secrets. I never has no livening up. I liked her better when she was flighty and flirty, that I did—a deal better. We'll, I'll see what comes of that poor Sir Thomas."
Meanwhile Esther, with one hand on her father's shoulder, was talking to him earnestly.
"I want you to come back with me, father—back this very minute."
"Where to, child?"
"To Commercial Road. There's to be a big meeting of the unemployed, and the Sisters and I, we was to give supper to some of the women and children. The meeting will be in the room below, and the supper above. I want you to come. Some gentlemen are going to speak to them; it won't be riotous."