“God forbid!” ejaculated the widow.
“Amin!” said Matty; “but he’ll be sure to come to it at last.”
“Come to what?” inquired the alarmed mother.
“To all sorts and kinds of contrariness,” replied Matty, rapidly; “boys can’t help it, you see; it’s their nature; they’re not patient, bidable, gentle creatures like us—not they! Mischief, and all kinds of murther, and upsetting, and latch-keys, and fidgets, and police-courts, and going out at nights, and staying out all day (though that’s a good riddance) and boxing, and apple-stealing, falling in love, and kicking up shindies.”
“I beg your pardon, but I do not understand you,” interrupted Mrs. Dolland, with more determination than she had exercised for years. She felt as if this strange, abrupt, half-mad woman was stringing together a set of accusations against her child.
“I’m obleeged to you, ma’am, for the compliment,” said Matty, dropping a curtsey; “but, as that’s neither here nor there, what’s your business with the masther?”
“That I can only tell himself,” she replied.
“Well,” muttered Matty, “that beats—! But the women now have no modesty. Them English is all a silent set—no sociability in them. Tell himself!—as if it wasn’t more natural for a half-blind craythur like that to discoorse a woman than a man. Well, well! No wonder my hair’s gone gray and my heart hard!”
There was something almost courtly in Mr. Whitelock’s manner of addressing women. People in his own class of life, who observed it, thought it ridiculous, and never speculated as to how this politeness became engrafted on his nature. He placed a seat for Mrs. Dolland in his little parlor; and, though it was a warm autumn evening, he moved it to keep her out of the air that blew over a box of yellowish, stunted mignonette, and two sickly wall-flowers, which graced the sill of his back window; he also pushed his own chair as far as he could from the widow’s, but, like all persons with impaired vision, she moved nearer to him, and turned her restless eyes toward the door.
“It is shut close,” said the bookseller.