“Pardon me, sir. The understanding with
Mrs. Carlyle was that I should remain here until her
return, and should then be at liberty at once to leave.”
“Exactly. That is what Mrs. Carlyle said.
But I must express a hope that by that time you may
be feeling so much better as to reconsider your decision
and continue with us. For my daughter’s
sake, Madame Vine, I trust it will be so.”
He rose as he spoke, and held out his hand. What
could she do but rise also, drop hers from her face,
and give it him in answer? He retained it, clasping
it warmly.
“How should I repay you—how thank
you for your love to my poor, lost boy?”
His earnest, tender eyes were on her blue double spectacles;
a sad smile mingled with the sweet expression of his
lips as he bent toward her—lips that had
once been hers! A faint exclamation of despair,
a vivid glow of hot crimson, and she caught up her
new black silk apron so deeply bordered with crape,
in her disengaged hand, and flung it up to her face.
He mistook the sound—mistook the action.
“Do not grieve for him. He is at rest.
Thank you—thank you greatly for your sympathy.”
Another wring of her hand, and Mr. Carlyle had quitted
the room. She laid her head upon the table, and
thought how merciful would be death when he should
come.
Mr. Jiffin was in his glory. Mr. Jiffin’s
house was the same. Both were in apple-pie order
to receive Miss Afy Hallijohn, who was, in a very
short period, indeed, to be converted into Mrs. Jiffin.
Mr. Jiffin had not seen Afy for some days—had
never been able to come across her since the trial
at Lynneborough. Every evening had he danced
attendance at her lodgings, but could not get admitted.
“Not at home—not at home,”
was the invariable answer, though Afy might be sunning
herself at the window in his very sight. Mr. Jiffin,
throwing off as best he could the temporary disappointment,
was in an ecstasy of admiration, for he set it all
down to Afy’s retiring modesty on the approach
of the nuptial day. “And they could try
to calumniate her!” he indignantly replied.
But now, one afternoon, when Mr. Jiffin and his shopman,
and his shop, and his wares, were all set out to the
best advantage—and very tempting they looked,
as a whole, especially the spiced bacon—Mr.
Jiffin happening to cast his eyes to the opposite
side of the street, beheld his beloved sailing by.
She was got up in the fashion. A mauve silk dress
with eighteen flounces, and about eighteen hundred
steel buttons that glittered your sight away; a “zouave”
jacket worked with gold; a black turban perched on
the top of her skull, garnished in front with what
court milliners are pleased to term a “plume
de coq,” but which, by its size and height,
might have been taken for a “coq” himself,
while a white ostrich feather was carried round and
did duty behind, and a spangled hair net hung down
to her waist. Gloriously grand was Afy that day
and if I had but a photographing machine at hand—or
whatever may be the scientific name of the thing—you
should certainly have been regaled with the sight
of her. Joyce would have gone down in a fit had
she encountered her by an unhappy chance. Mr.
Jiffin, dashing his apron anywhere, tore across.
