'So they are almost worse than orphans,' said Sister Constance, when the Curate went down from reading to the invalid, and she could tell him the verdict.
'The fact? There is no need to lay the future on the shoulders of the present.'
'A very dark present. I feel as if a great bright sun, warming and invigorating, had gone out of my life. Yet I knew him but two years.'
'I can understand it, though I knew him but two days.'
'I hope he may have been the making of me,' sighed Mr. Audley. 'He ought to be.'
'I think he has been,' said she, smiling. 'There is some difference between you and the boyish young deacon that came here two years ago.'
'Who thought life without shooting barely endurable by the help of croquet! I trust so! He was very patient and tolerant--made holidays for me that first summer which it cuts me to recollect.'
'To live and share in a great sorrow does make a great step in life,' said Constance, thoughtfully looking at the much graver and more earnest brow of her husband's young cousin; 'and you were a comfort to them all as no one else could be.'
'Must you go?' he said. 'I wanted to consult you. I am thinking of giving up my present lodgings to this Mowbray Smith, who is coming as curate, and coming here.'
'I thought I had heard legends of twelve foot square?'
'Not with thirteen children. Besides, we were seasoned!'
'Stay; you don't understand. There are three rooms on this floor. Poor Mrs. Underwood will hardly want to occupy these two just yet. I take them, and put in some furniture--live to myself, but let them board and lodge me. They may as well have what is to be made by it as any one else.'
'But can they? And, forgive me, Charles, are you prepared for the cookery here? Really, some of those children have appetites so small, that I can't bear to see them at dinner.'
'That's the very point. They all say the invaluable Sibby is as good a nurse as she is bad as a cook. Now, if they have no help, Wilmet _must_ stay at home to look after her mother and the twins; and that is not fit for such a young girl. Now, my coming might enable them to get some one who knows the use of meat and fires, and would send upstairs the only woman who would undertake such a charge as that must be.'