“Ah,” she said as he entered, “I am glad you have come at last; for I have been waiting here for at least a full hour. Where on earth have you been?”
“Out seeing to some very important business; a matter demanding immediate attention,” he replied somewhat coldly.
“Something which your wife is not to know about, I presume?”
“I have not said so, nor have I the least intention to keep it secret from you. Let me read you this”—unfolding a letter as he spoke.
It was the one he had just received from England, telling of the decease of Captain and Mrs. Eldon, and the sending of their children to America. She listened in almost breathless surprise.
“You have hardly mentioned that brother for years, and I had almost forgotten his existence,” she remarked as he refolded the letter and laid it aside.
“Too true,” he responded with a heavy sigh, “and my heart reproaches me for my neglect. Poor Harry! if he had left that climate sooner he might perhaps have lived to be an old man; lived to support and bring up his children himself; but now all that I can do is to help in that work.”
“As if you hadn’t family enough of your own!” she exclaimed indignantly.
“I have two, my brother Albert six; and I have quite as large an income as he.”
“And a wife that doesn’t spend the half that his does,” she added drawing herself up with dignity.