"My heart bleeds for them, Mr. Goslett," she said. "I can't bear to set eyes on them; I can't face them. Because to do what I should like to do for them, would be nothing short of ruin. And how to send them away I cannot tell."
He nodded his head encouragingly.
"You are a young man, Mr. Goslett, and you don't consider—and you are thinking day and night of that sweet young thing, Miss Kennedy. And she of you. Oh! you needn't blush; a handsome fellow like you is a prize for any woman, however good-looking. Besides, I've got eyes."
"Still, that doesn't help us much to the point, Mrs. Bormalack, which is, what can we do for them?"
"Oh, dear me! the poor things don't board and lodge any more, Mr. Goslett. They've had no board to-day. If I did what I should like to do—but I can't. There's the rent and rates and all. And how I can keep them in the house, unless they pay their rent, I can't tell. I've never been so miserable since Captain Saffrey went away, owing for three months."
"Not enough to eat?"
"Lady Davenant came to me this morning, and paid the rent for this week, but not the board; said that her nephew Nathaniel hadn't sent the six dollars, and they could only have breakfast, and must find some cheap place for dinner somewhere else. In the middle of the day they went out. Her ladyship put quite a chirpy face upon it; said they were going into the city to get dinner, but his lordship groaned. Dinner! They came home at two, and his groans have been heart-rending all the afternoon. I never heard such groaning."
"Poor old man!"
"And there's the professor, too. It's low water with him. No one wants conjuring till winter comes. But he's quite used to go without his dinner. You needn't mind him!"
"Eels," said Harry, "are used to being skinned. Yet they wriggle a bit."