"'Twill be so lonesome for you," said Ruth; "I think it would have cheered you in this twilight time if—"
"I need it not, I tell you," quickly interrupted Rumbold. "I expect—visitors," and he coughed huskily.
"Visitors!"
"Ay; that is to say," stammered Rumbold, "it—it is possible."
"Visitors! and nothing prepared for them to eat!" cried the little housemistress aghast.
"They are not of the sort who set store by rich meats and costly wine-bibbing. They come—to confer with me, on—on important questions."
"Is it the price of grain, father? I heard Parson Alsides saying to Master Lockit only this very morning that it was at a most ruinous price—seventy shillings a quarter, he said; and that if the farmers and the employers—such as you, father, dear, and Lawrence Lee, I suppose, would but put their heads together to devise how it could be cheapened for the poor, 'twould be, he said, a right blessed day's work, and a vast deal better than the hatching of all sorts of plots, and—"
"Eh! eh! eh! Parson Alsides is a chattering old sycophant, who is always prating for the pensions he gets out of the king's own privy purse. Though, mind you, child, I don't say I would not spare the matter consideration when more serious concerns allow me leisure."
"I hoped you had done with those for ever, father," said Ruth gravely; "'twas a serious concern, indeed, when poor King Charles was killed, and you—"
"I! how now?" cried Rumbold, turning sharply upon her. "What had I to do with that?"