"I say again, I am much obliged to you. Why weaken my sense of
what is your due in obligation, by preferring enormous claims upon
me? Trouble, sorrow, affliction, adversity! One might suppose I
had been dying a score of deaths here!"
"Do you believe, Mr. Edmund," she asked, rising and going nearer to
him, "that I spoke of the poor people of the house, with any
reference to myself? To me?" laying her hand upon her bosom with a
simple and innocent smile of astonishment.
"Oh! I think nothing about it, my good creature," he returned. "I
have had an indisposition, which your solicitude - observe! I say
solicitude - makes a great deal more of, than it merits; and it's
over, and we can't perpetuate it."
He coldly took a book, and sat down at the table.
She watched him for a little while, until her smile was quite gone,
and then, returning to where her basket was, said gently:
"Mr. Edmund, would you rather be alone?"
"There is no reason why I should detain you here," he replied.
"Except - " said Milly, hesitating, and showing her work.
"Oh! the curtain," he answered, with a supercilious laugh. "That's
not worth staying for."
She made up the little packet again, and put it in her basket.
Then, standing before him with such an air of patient entreaty that
he could not choose but look at her, she said:
"If you should want me, I will come back willingly.
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