“Then call me Siah.”
“Sire. No, thank you; it would seem as though I regarded you as my sovereign.”
As yet there was no child, nor prospect of one. This fact might have been considered a reason why they should have been more than ever devoted to one another, as there was no distraction, no one else in the house to love, except the slavey, and she was, naturally, out of the question.
But it was not so. Mrs. Birdwood had nothing else to think about except the lack of ardour in Mr. Birdwood, and nothing else to do but fret over it.
“My dear,” said Josiah Birdwood one day at table, “my dear, I think Maggie Finch is just about your size and build.”
“Maggie Finch!—and who is she?”
“I mean the girl at Miss Thomas’s, the dressmaker’s.”
“Maggie Finch, indeed!” exclaimed Eliza, turning first red, then white. “And pray, what do you know about”—witheringly—“Maggie Finch?”
“Oh, nothing, my dear, only she is in Miss Thomas’s shop.”