"I wish your sister Emma would come down; she is always shut up in your father's room; I called here on purpose to see her."
"I dare say she will come presently—do sit down here; I am sure you ought to rest yourself; you seem to have had a very dirty ride."
"You could not go and call her, I suppose?"
"Oh no, she will come when she has done reading to my father. Do take something—a biscuit and a glass of wine, or something of that kind."
"Quite unnecessary, I have but just breakfasted. I do not keep such gothic hours as some of my friends do. I am able to please myself—a free and independent man."
"No doubt a happy one. Ah, Mr. Musgrove, you are most fortunate. You cannot tell the misery, the low spirits, the—the—in short all we poor helpless women suffer from, how much heart-breaking sorrow we endure in silence—bitterness of heart of which the world knows nothing."
Tom only whistled again in reply to this very pathetic address, then turning round began to examine the ornaments on the chimney-piece. Even Margaret could not quite blind herself to the change in his manner since the period when her smiles seemed the object he most coveted.
Presently he began again.
"Whilst your sisters were at Howard's did they see much of the Osbornes?"
Before Margaret had time to give an account of the visit to the Castle, Elizabeth entered the room.