She had calculated her time so as to fall in with him at his dinner
hour, even though it obliged her to go to his own house rather than
to the bank where he and his brother spent all the business hours of
the day.
Sylvia was so nearly exhausted by the length of her walk and the
weight of her baby, that all she could do when the door was opened
was to totter into the nearest seat, sit down, and begin to cry.
In an instant kind hands were about her, loosening her heavy cloak,
offering to relieve her of her child, who clung to her all the more
firmly, and some one was pressing a glass of wine against her lips.
'No, sir, I cannot take it! wine allays gives me th' headache; if I
might have just a drink o' water. Thank you, ma'am' (to the
respectable-looking old servant), 'I'm well enough now; and perhaps,
sir, I might speak a word with yo', for it's that I've come for.' 'It's a pity, Sylvia Hepburn, as thee didst not come to me at the
bank, for it's been a long toil for thee all this way in the heat,
with thy child. But if there's aught I can do or say for thee, thou
hast but to name it, I am sure. Martha! wilt thou relieve her of her
child while she comes with me into the parlour?' But the wilful little Bella stoutly refused to go to any one, and
Sylvia was not willing to part with her, tired though she was.
So the baby was carried into the parlour, and much of her after-life
depended on this trivial fact.
Once installed in the easy-chair, and face to face with Jeremiah,
Sylvia did not know how to begin.
Jeremiah saw this, and kindly gave her time to recover herself, by
pulling out his great gold watch, and letting the seal dangle before
the child's eyes, almost within reach of the child's eager little
fingers.
'She favours you a deal,' said he, at last. 'More than her father,'
he went on, purposely introducing Philip's name, so as to break the
ice; for he rightly conjectured she had come to speak to him about
something connected with her husband.
Still Sylvia said nothing; she was choking down tears and shyness,
and unwillingness to take as confidant a man of whom she knew so
little, on such slight ground (as she now felt it to be) as the
little kindly speech with which she had been dismissed from that
house the last time that she entered it.
'It's no use keeping yo', sir,' she broke out at last. 'It's about
Philip as I comed to speak. Do yo' know any thing whatsomever about
him? He niver had a chance o' saying anything, I know; but maybe
he's written?' 'Not a line, my poor young woman!' said Jeremiah, hastily putting an
end to that vain idea.