Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/29

“Yes, Sam. I long for home—our home! I should like to be there, and never leave it, and die there.” But she remembered herself. ‘“That’a only a momentary feeling. I have a son, you know, a dear boy. He’s at school now.”

“Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there’s lots on ‘em along this road.”

“Oh not Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school—one of the most distinguished in England.”

“Chok it all! of course! I forget, ma’am, that you've been a lady for so many years,”

“No, Tam not a lady,” she said, sadly. “I never shall be. But he’s a gentleman, and that--makes it— oh, how difficult for me!”

The acquaintance thus oddly reopened proceeded apace. She often looked out to get a few words with him, by night or by day. Her sorrow was that she could not accompany her one old friend on foot a little way, and talk more freely than she could do while he paueed before the house. One night, at the beginning of June, when she was again on the watch after an absence of some days from the window, he entered the gate and said, softly, “ Now, wouldn’t some air do you good? I've only half a load this morning. Why not ride up to Covent Garden with me? There’s a nice seat on the cabbages, where I've spread a sack. You can be home again ina cab before anybody is up.”

She refused at first, and then, trembling with excitement, hastily finished her dressing, and wrapped herself up in cloak and veil, afterwards sidling down-