“Well and brown! And Mildred, she is pale, I suppose, and with her eyes turned up to his and her lips brushing his shoulder every now and then—O I can see them—I suppose they go on a worse than ever.”
“Indeed and they do, Mr. Joseph. After, breakfast this morning I sent them up into the drawing-room to be out of the way of the drover's meeting to be held in the bar, and when I went up to ask them about the lunch they would take with them on the river this afternoon I heard no sound like and just whispered at the door a bit if I might come in. When I went in, there was your brother standing behind her in a chair, with all her hair down, and a brush in his hand and his wife fast asleep! He looked frightened for a minute when he saw me and I besought him to bring her to, thinking he'd mesmerized her. He'd been brushing it and playing with it and the morning over warm—she had fallen asleep. And I left them, Mr. Joseph, I left them, for they love each other so. And when I think of the honor he has done my girl, and how particular he is that she shall be called Mrs. Foxley—it—”
“Well, well, Mrs. Cox, ours is a good name, and I do not think my brother would have ever allowed any but a good girl to bear it. And if a girl is lovely and gentle and pure-minded, and innocent, and neat, and clean, and refined as your niece was, it matters not about her birth. Birth! O my dear old soul, I am sick of the word! Miss Dexter now, is a lady, you know.”
“Ay.”
“And I must see her again,” enforced Mr. Joseph, brought back to his one idea. “I must see her again.”
Mrs. Cox communicated this intelligence to her niece, Mrs. Foxley.
“I think I can understand why,” said she, lying back in her husband's arms one hot summer night under the trees at the back of the blouse. “It seems a hard wish to understand and a harder one to comply with, but it may have to be done. Dacre—”
“What my darling!”
“When are you going to tell me about your life in England and—and—about the woman who sent you out of it?”
“The woman! I never told you about a woman, child!”