‘But we cannot afford it. Can we?’
‘No, my dear, no,’ said the old man, very shaky in voice; ‘we can hardly afford what we have.’
Rachel cut her grandfather a slice of bread.
‘Too much, my dear!’ cried he, with a wave of his hand—‘too much! I’ve no appetite at all.’
The girl divided the bread, a painful look passing over her face. The old man, although there was a ravenous glance in his eyes strangely contradictory to his words, began to eat his bread slowly.
Presently the girl, as though expressing her thought impulsively, cried: ‘Grandfather! why are we so poor?’
The old man, who was munching his crust, and staring abstractedly at the morsel of cheese, looked up with bewilderment at Rachel.
‘I cannot understand why,’ she continued, forcing out the words—‘why we are so very, very poor! I cannot understand why such a wealthy House as Armytage and Company, where you have been a clerk for more than fifty years, should pay you such a small salary.’
‘Small, Rachel?’ asked her grandfather. ‘Fifteen shillings a week, small?’
‘Well, it does seem so to me,’ the girl replied in a modest tone.