Mr. Drummond was going with him to the Mission Room. When there, he looked eagerly at each new arrival, but was disappointed in his search for the face of Adam Livesey.
Adam's arrival at home was not marked by such pleasing features as that of Mr. Drummond. He was rather late, and the children, weary with play and the walk to and from the park, were getting fretful, baby included.
"If you didn't want your tea, you might ha' thought these poor little things would, let alone Maggie and me, after being at work all day," said Mrs. Livesey in no amiable tone. "You may well cry, baby. You're almost famished, and father has given you nothing, I'm sure."
Mrs. Livesey might well be sure on this point, for, seeing that Adam had taken no eatables in his pocket, and had handed every farthing of wages into her keeping on the preceding evening, it would have been difficult for him to feed the children.
He was going to say so, but he checked the inclination to defend himself, as he had done on many similar occasions. "She knows as well as I do," thought he. "It's only her way. Least said's soonest mended, and naught said needs no mending."
So, having carefully rubbed his shoes and seen that the youngsters did the same, he went through into the little lean-to scullery to wash his hands. When he sat down at the table, he found his wife full of curiosity about the gentleman who, the children said, "had been sitting talking to father nearly all the time."
"Tom says he was a gentleman from Rutherford's, and that he saw him twice, on days when he brought your dinner. But I told him he must be wrong. No gentleman from Rutherford's would sit talking to a poor labourer like you."
"Tom was right. It was Mr. Drummond, the new manager."
"Well, I never! What's going to happen now? Whatever had he got to say?" inquired Mrs. Livesey, brimming over with curiosity.
"I can hardly tell you, Maggie. He said how pretty baby was, and he kissed her little face, and told me he had one like her at home, and he'd lost the next oldest, same as we did. I told him she favoured her mother, and what a bonny lass you were when I first knew you."