'Philip bade me say it was business as kept him from fetchin' yo'
hissel'--business wi' the lawyer, about--about yo'r father.' 'What do they say?' said Sylvia, suddenly, lifting her bowed head,
as though she would read her companion's face in the dim light.
'I dunnot know,' said Hester, sadly. They were now jolting over the
paved streets, and not a word could be spoken. They were now at
Philip's door, which was opened to receive them even before they
arrived, as if some one had been watching and listening. The old
servant, Phoebe, the fixture in the house, who had belonged to it
and to the shop for the last twenty years, came out, holding a
candle and sheltering it in her hand from the weather, while Philip
helped the tottering steps of Mrs. Robson as she descended behind. As
Hester had got in last, so she had now to be the first to move. Just
as she was moving, Sylvia's cold little hand was laid on her arm.
'I am main and thankful to yo'. I ask yo'r pardon for speaking
cross, but, indeed, my heart's a'most broken wi' fear about
feyther.' The voice was so plaintive, so full of tears, that Hester could not
but yearn towards the speaker. She bent over and kissed her cheek,
and then clambered unaided down by the wheel on the dark side of the
cart. Wistfully she longed for one word of thanks or recognition
from Philip, in whose service she had performed this hard task; but
he was otherwise occupied, and on casting a further glance back as
she turned the corner of the street, she saw Philip lifting Sylvia
carefully down in his arms from her footing on the top of the wheel,
and then they all went into the light and the warmth, the door was
shut, the lightened cart drove briskly away, and Hester, in rain,
and cold, and darkness, went homewards with her tired sad heart.
Philip had done all he could, since his return from lawyer Dawson's,
to make his house bright and warm for the reception of his beloved.
He had a strong apprehension of the probable fate of poor Daniel
Robson; he had a warm sympathy with the miserable distress of the
wife and daughter; but still at the back of his mind his spirits
danced as if this was to them a festal occasion. He had even taken
unconscious pleasure in Phoebe's suspicious looks and tones, as he
had hurried and superintended her in her operations. A fire blazed
cheerily in the parlour, almost dazzling to the travellers brought
in from the darkness and the rain; candles burned--two candles, much
to Phoebe's discontent. Poor Bell Robson had to sit down almost as
soon as she entered the room, so worn out was she with fatigue and
excitement; yet she grudged every moment which separated her, as she
thought, from her husband.