"I have none at all."
"Dear me, that's a pity! Who are you in black for?"
There was a pause—then Miss Rose answered, still without looking up:
"For my father."
"Oh, for your father! Has he been long dead? Another cup, if you please. Betsy Ann knows how to make nice coffee."
"He has been dead ten months," said Miss Rose, a flash of intolerable pain dyeing her pale cheeks at this questioning.
"How do you think you'll like Speckport?" went on the dauntless Miss Jo. "It's not equal to Montreal or New York, they tell me, but the Bluenoses think there's no place like it. Poor things! if they once saw Dublin, it's little they'd think of such a place as this is."
"Halte là!" cried Charley; "please to remember, Miss Jo, I am a native, to the manner born, an out-and-out Bluenose, and will stand no nonsense about Speckport! There's no place like it. See Speckport and die! Mother, I'll trouble you for some of that toast."
"Won't you have some, Miss Rose?" said Mrs. Marsh. "You ain't eating anything."
"Not any more, thank you. I like Speckport very much, Miss Blake; all I have seen of it."