“ ‘Have patience,’ I said; ‘have patience, it will all come right, she has no hand in it.’ He threw me off as if I had been a child, and the last I saw of him was his head above the people that had gathered round the court. I walked quietly on, and when I entered the house there stood Mary, white as a sheet, while Mr. and Mrs. Considine were doing all manner of civilities to the young man, who was acting the gentleman, smiling and bowing and twisting a seal—set the likes of him up with a seal—at the end of his watch-chain—a seal which was big enough for the rapper of a hall-door—and dangling a ring he had on his starved, crooked, little finger, right in the foolish old man’s eyes. ‘And wont you sit down, Mr. Henry Highley,’ said one, ‘and wont you stop for tay,’ says the other. And seeing me staring at him, Mrs. Considine adds—
“ ‘A young lady-friend of my daughter’s, who stops mostly with a friend of her own at the West-end.’
“Now, aunt, I didn’t care about her calling me a lady, but I couldn’t bear being put on a level with my mistress, a rale lady born.
“And I said, ‘my mistress lives at the West-end, sure enough.’ Mrs. Considine frowned at me, and Mary left the little room.
“ ‘Come back, Mary,’ called her father; ‘bring her back,’ whispered her mother.
“It was well I followed her—she had fainted: I laid her on the bed, and did all I could for her. When she was coming to herself, she put up her hand—I thought, maybe, to feel for the locket, but that might be my fancy. It was long before I could make her deaf father understand that she was too ill to return, but her mother saw it at once, and after we put her to bed, and she drank a cup of tea, and said she thought to go to sleep, we left her—I staid a few minutes below, though I saw the old man wished me gone. And now, aunt, don’t be angry, but I think I could have found it in my heart to give that Cub-een of a fellow, a glass of poison: his face was not only vicious, sharp, and thin, and active, like a rat’s—but he had his eyes every where. I saw him weigh the tea-spoon on his fore-finger in a balancing sort of fashion, and then look at the mark to be sure it was silver: he drew the old people on in such a way, getting more out of Mr. Considine than ever was got out of him before, as to his property and means—getting him to talk of interest and bankers, and the like: and the old man cursed the savings banks, and said money was never so safe as in one’s own house, and that the best of all banks for him was his leather bag—the more I looked at Mr. Henry Highley, the more I hated him, and sorry enough was I to know that young Considine had gone a journey for his employer, and was not to the fore, when most wanted.
“I stole up for another look at Mary. She was, or purtended to be, asleep; but it was put into my heart to kneel down and pray for her. The words were not many, but the Lord knew their meaning. I dipped my finger in the holy-water cup, that hung at the head of her bed, and signed the blessed sign over her forehead, without touching her. She looked so helpless, and so lonely there—her young innocent face, still wet with tears, turned up to the heavens—the moonlight was hindered from shining on her by the fog that hangs about the London streets by day and night; and maybe so best, for moonlight lays heavy on a throbbing brow, and is not over lucky, particularly—as you know—when it’s full moon. So I did not go into the little room again, but hurried home, for I had overstaid my time by more than an hour. I was near my own street, when who came to my side but Mr. Henry Highley: and he said, it was dull walking my lone,[[24]] and he’d see me home, and I told him I had the sight of my eyes, and could see myself and him too. And he said I was very witty, and I said, I was sorry I could not return the compliment. Then he thought to fish out about my mistress—she must be a rich lady to keep the likes of me. And I answered riches had nothing to do with that: I did not want to sell myself, or buy any one, and that I should be happier to serve for love than for money; but he stuck to the question—Had she plate and jewels? So, turning sharp on him, I said that any one would think he was a house-breaker, and I laughed: this was at the door; and there was a policeman passing, who stopped. Well, aunt, Mr. Henry Highley, without another word—with your leave or by your leave—whisked off.
“ ‘What do you know of that young man?’ inquired the blue-coat.
“ ‘Nothing pleasant,’ I said.
“ ‘Where did you meet him?’