“I believe not,” replied Martha, with a faint smile, which, like a gleam of sunshine on a dark landscape, gave indication of the brightness that might have been if grey clouds of sorrow had not overspread her sky.
“What’s the lady’s name, Martha?”
“Middleton.”
“And w’ere abouts may she live?”
“In Conway Street, Knightsbridge.”
“The number?”
“Number 6, I believe; but why are you so particular in your inquiries about her?” said Martha, looking up for a moment from her work, while the faint gleam of sunshine again flitted over her face.
“Why, you see, Martha,” replied Phil, gazing through the smoke of his pipe with a sinister smile, “it makes a feller feel koorious to hear the partiklers about a lady wot must have things, an’ won’t take no denial! If I was you, now, I’d disappoint her, an’ see how she’d take it.”
He wound up his remark, which was made in a bantering tone, with another malediction, which was earnest enough—savagely so.
“Oh! Phil,” cried the girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; “don’t, oh, don’t swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you—at your very elbow—while you thus insult Him to his face.”