"And you are waiting breakfast for him! You must be starving."
"I took some coffee when Molly had hers. How is papa, Richard?"
"Anything but well. Very much worried, for one thing."
"Madam and Matilda are back again, I hear?" continued Bessy.
"Three days ago. They have brought Miss Field with them."
"And madam has brought her usual temper, I suppose," added Bessy. "No wonder papa is suffering."
"That of course; it will never be otherwise. But he is troubling himself also very much about the works being stopped. I tell him to leave all such trouble to me, but it is of no use."
"When will the strike end, Richard?"
Richard shook his head. It was an unprofitable theme, and he did not wish to pursue it with Bessy. She had sufficient cares of her own, as he suspected, without adding to them. Three letters lay on the table, close to where Richard was sitting; they were addressed to Dr. Rane. His fingers began turning them about mechanically, quite in abstraction.
"I know the handwriting of two of them," remarked Bessy, possibly fancying he was curious on the point; "not of the third."