“Was George there?” inquired Maria, putting the question with apparent indifference.
“No, George wasn’t there. Charlotte said if she had thought of it she’d have invited Isaac to meet me: but Isaac was shy of them, she added, and had never been down once, though she asked him several times. She’s a good-natured one, Maria, is that Charlotte Pain.”
“Yes,” quietly responded Maria.
“She told me she knew how young sailors get out of money in London, and she shouldn’t think of my standing the cost of responding to her invitation; and she gave me a sovereign.”
Maria’s cheeks burnt. “You did not take it, Reginald?”
“Didn’t I! it was quite a godsend. You don’t know how scarce money has been with me. Things have altered, you know, Maria. And Mrs. Pain knows it too, and she has no stuck-up nonsense about her. She made me promise to go and see them when I had passed.—But I have not passed,” added Reginald, by way of parenthesis. “And she said if I was at fault for a home the next time I was looking out for a ship, she’d give me one, and be happy to see me. And I thought it was very kind of her; for I am sure she meant it. Oh—by the way—she said she thought you’d let her have Meta up for a few weeks.”
Maria involuntarily stretched out her hand—as if Meta were there, and she would clasp her and withhold her from some threatened danger. Reginald rose.
“You are not going yet, Regy?”
“I must. I only ran in for a few minutes. There’s Grace to see and fifty more folks, and they’ll expect me home to dinner. I’ll say good-bye to Meta as I go through the garden. I saw she was there; but she did not see me.”
He bent to kiss her. Maria held his hand in hers. “I shall be thinking of you always, Reginald. If you were only going under happier circumstances!”