“Well now, can you doubt it, Betsy? Of course I shall. When did you hear from George?”
Mrs. Chandler rose, obliged to be satisfied. To urgently press any interest of her own was not in her nature. As she shook hands with Jacob she was struck with the sickly appearance of his face.
“Are you feeling quite well, Jacob? You look but poorly.”
“I have felt anything but well for a long time,” he replied, in a fretful tone. “I don’t know what ails me: too much work, perhaps, but I seem to have strength for nothing.”
“You should give yourself a rest, Jacob, and take some bark.”
“Ay. Good-day.”
Now it came to pass that in turning out of the house, after nodding to Tom and Valentine, who sat at a desk side by side in the room to the left, the door of which stood open, Mrs. Chandler saw the Squire on the opposite side of the street, and crossed over to him. He asked her in a joking way whether she had been in to get six and eightpenceworth of law. She told him what she had been in for, seeing no reason for concealing it.
“Bless me, yes!” cried he, in his impulsive way. “I’m sure it’s quite time Tom was in the firm. I’ll go and talk to Jacob.”
And when he got in—making straight across the street with the words, and through the passage, and so to the room without halt or ceremony—he saw Jacob leaning back in his chair, his hands thrust into his black side-pockets, and his head bent on his chest in deep thought. The Squire noticed how deep the lines in his brow had grown, just as Mrs. Chandler had.