She came in, putting back her veil: she had worn a plain-shaped bonnet with a white border ever since her husband died. It suited her meek, kind, and somewhat homely face, on which the brown hair, streaked with grey, was banded.
“Jacob, I am sorry to disturb you, especially as you are busy; but I have wanted to speak to you for some time now and have not liked to come,” she began, taking the chair that stood near the table at which he sat. “It is about Tom.”
“What about him?” asked Jacob. “Has he been up to any mischief?”
“Mischief! Tom! Why, Jacob, I hardly think there can be such another young man as he, for steadiness and good conduct; and, I may say, for kindness. I have never heard anything against him. What I want to ask you is, when you think of making a change?”
“A change?” echoed Jacob, as if the words puzzled him, biting away at the feather of his pen. “A change?”
“Is it not time that he should be taken into the business? I—I thought—and Tom I know also thought, Jacob—that you would have done it when he was twenty-one.”
“Oh, did you?” returned Jacob, civilly.
“He is twenty-four, you know, now, Jacob, and naturally wishes to get forward in life. I am anxious that he should; and I think it is time—forgive me for saying it, Jacob—that something was settled.”
“I was thinking of raising Tom’s salary,” coolly observed Jacob; “of giving him, say, fifty pounds a-year more. Valentine has been bothering me to do the same by him; so I suppose I must.”
The fixed colour on Mrs. Chandler’s thin cheeks grew a shade deeper. “But, Jacob, it was his father’s wish, you know, that he should be taken into partnership, should succeed to his own share of the business; and I thought you would have arranged it ere this. An increase of salary is not the thing at all: it is not that that is in question.”