'No, mum,' replied the housekeeper; 'you have to have the whole barrel in the end; and if you get it by bits you pay every time for the privilege. No, mum, that ain't no economy. It's one o' the things which kills poor people; they has to pay for havin' every quart of onions measured out to 'em. I'm afeard Christopher hain't had no money for his hay and his oats that he's got latterly.'
'Hay and oats!' cried Esther. 'Would he get them without orders and means?'
'I s'pose he thinks he has his orders from natur'. The horse can't be let to go without his victuals, mum. And means Christopher hadn't, more'n a quarter enough. What was he to do?'
Esther stood silent and pale, making no demonstration, but the more profoundly moved and dismayed.
'An' what's harder on my stomach than all the rest,' the housekeeper went on, 'is that woman sendin' us milk.'
'That woman? Mrs. Blumenfeld?'
'Which it was her name, mum.'
'Was! You do not mean— Is Christopher really married?'
'He says that, mum, and I suppose he knows. He's back and forth, and don't live nowheres, as I tells him. And the milk comes plentiful, and to be sure the colonel likes his glass of a mornin'; and curds, and blancmange, and the like, I see he's no objection to; but thinks I to myself, if he knowed, it wouldn't go down quite so easy.'
'If he knew what? Don't you pay for it?'