“Mamma, why don’t you eat some breakfast?”
“I am not hungry, Meta.”
“There’s Uncle Thomas!” she resumed.
Uncle Thomas! At half-past eight? But Meta was right. That was Mr. Godolphin’s voice in the hall, speaking to Pierce. A gleam of something like sunshine darted into Maria’s heart. His early arrival seemed to whisper of a hope that the Bank would be reopened—though Maria could not have told whence she drew the deduction.
She heard him go into the Bank. But, ere many minutes elapsed, he had come out again, and was knocking at the door of the breakfast-room.
“Come in.”
He came in: and a grievous sinking fell upon Maria’s heart as she looked at him. In his pale, sad countenance, bearing too evidently the traces of acute mental suffering, she read a death-blow to her hopes. Rising, she held out her hand, without speaking.
“Uncle Thomas, I’m having breakfast here,” put in a little intruding voice. “I’m having coffee and egg.”
Thomas laid his hand for a moment on the child’s head as he passed her. He took a seat a little away from the table, facing Maria, who turned to him.
“Pierce tells me that George is not here.”