Part 17 (2/2)
”And why did he not?”
”He had no wife and children,” said Warner; ”he was not so blessed.”
The baby woke and began to cry.
”Ah! my child!” exclaimed the mother. ”That wicked Harriet! Here Amelia, I have a morsel of crust here. I saved it yesterday for baby; moisten it in water, and tie it up in this piece of calico: he will suck it; it will keep him quiet; I can bear anything but his cry.”
”I shall have finished my job by noon,” said Warner; ”and then, please G.o.d, we shall break our fast.”
”It is yet two hours to noon,” said his wife. ”And Barber always keeps you so long! I cannot bear that Barber: I dare say he will not advance you money again as you did not bring the job home on Sat.u.r.day night. If I were you, Philip, I would go and sell the piece unfinished at once to one of the cheap shops.”
”I have gone straight all my life,” said Warner.
”And much good it has done you,” said his wife.
”My poor Amelia! How she s.h.i.+vers! I think the sun never touches this house. It is indeed a most wretched place!”
”It will not annoy you long, Mary,” said her husband: ”I can pay no more rent; and I only wonder they have not been here already to take the week.”
”And where are we to go?” said the wife.
”To a place which certainly the sun never touches,” said her husband, with a kind of malice in his misery,--”to a cellar!”
”Oh! why was I ever born!” exclaimed his wife. ”And yet I was so happy once! And it is not our fault. I cannot make it out Warner, why you should not get two pounds a-week like Walter Gerard?”
”Bah!” said the husband.
”You said he had no family,” continued his wife. ”I thought he had a daughter.”
”But she is no burthen to him. The sister of Mr Trafford is the Superior of the convent here, and she took Sybil when her mother died, and brought her up.”
”Oh! then she is a nun?”
”Not yet; but I dare say it will end in it.”
”Well, I think I would even sooner starve,” said his wife, ”than my children should be nuns.”
At this moment there was a knocking at the door. Warner descended from his loom and opened it.
”Lives Philip Warner here?” enquired a clear voice of peculiar sweetness.
”My name is Warner.”
”I come from Walter Gerard,” continued the voice. ”Your letter reached him only last night. The girl at whose house your daughter left it has quitted this week past Mr Trafford's factory.”
”Pray enter.”
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