The condescension with which Mrs. Wilfer delivered this proclamation of patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired downstairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed.
“So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn!” he said, bitterly.
And added as he went upstairs. “And yet so pretty, so pretty!”
And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. “And if she knew!”
She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and she declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn’t get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump—stump—stumping overhead in the dark, like a ghost.