For once Mrs Leather’s knitting-needles came to a sudden stop, and she looked inquiringly at her young friend. So did May.
“Have you accepted it?”
“Well, yes. I have.”
“I’m so sorry,” said May; “I don’t know what Shank will do without you.”
At that moment a loud knocking was heard at the door. May rose to open it, and Mrs Leather looked anxiously at her son.
A savage undertoned growl and an unsteady step told all too plainly that the head of the house had returned home.
With sudden interest in worsted fabrics, which he was far from feeling, Charlie Brooke turned his back to the door, and, leaning forward, took up an end of the work with which the knitter was busy.
“That’s an extremely pretty pattern, Mrs Leather. Does it take you long to make things of the kind?”
“Not long; I—I make a good many of them.”
She said this with hesitation, and with her eyes fixed on the doorway, through the opening of which her husband thrust a shaggy dishevelled head, with dissipation stamped on a countenance which had evidently been handsome once.