“What do you want, Law?” she said, in a voice which was not so sweet as it had been at the Deanery. She gave a rapid glance up at him as she went on with her darning, and took in the whole picture, the easy-chair and the lounging attitude. If he had sat upright upon the little hard wickerwork chair, Lottie would have felt more merciful.
“Well, I want nothing in particular, except to talk to you a little,” said Law. “You need not be so cross.”
“I am not cross; but to see you in an easy-chair, idling away all the morning——”
“How do you know I’ve been idling this morning? Look at my book: that’s Virgil,” said Law, looking at it with simple admiration. “I don’t think a fellow could do much better than that.”
“But have you really been reading?” Lottie’s tone modified; she began to look at him with respect. “Oh, Law, if you only would work! it would make such a difference, it would make me quite happy. I was speaking to Mr. Ashford last night. You know Mr. Ashford, the minor canon. He is so clever with his pupils. If you could but go to him, if he would only take you, Law!”
“He would take me fast enough if we could afford the money. I say, Lottie, the governor was awfully late last night: did you hear him coming in? I want to tell you something about him—something I have heard.”
“I think you were very late, too, Law.”
“Oh! never mind about that; it does not matter about me. Lottie, listen. A friend—I mean somebody—was speaking to me about him. Did it ever come into your head that he was not an old man, and that such a thing was possible as that he might—it seems too ridiculous to say it—marry again?”
“Marry again? you are dreaming!” cried Lottie loudly, in her astonishment.
“Yes, while we knew nothing of it. After all, when you come to think of it, when you look at him, you know, he is not so awfully old. One thinks he must be, because he is one’s father. But some of these old beggars are just as silly”—said Law in awestruck tones, “and you can’t stop them doing things as you can a fellow that is young. It is an awful shame! a fellow that is under age, as they call it, you can pull him up, though there’s no harm in him; but an old fellow of fifty, you can’t stop him, whatever nonsense he may set his face to. That’s what I heard last night.”