Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. I, 1859.djvu/130

118 contracted as if from intense pain. Mr Irwine went to the bedside, and took up one of the delicate hands and kissed it; a slight pressure from the small fingers told him that it was worth while to have come up-stairs for the sake of doing that. He lingered a moment, looking at her, and then turned away and left the room, treading very gently—he had taken off his boots and put on slippers before he came up-stairs. Whoever remembers how many things he has declined to do even for himself, rather than have the trouble of putting on or taking off his boots, will not think this last detail insignificant.

And Mr Irwine's sisters, as any person of family within ten miles of Broxton could have testified, were such stupid uninteresting women It was quite a pity handsome, clever Mrs Irwine should have had such commonplace daughters. That fine old lady herself was worth driving ten miles to see, any day; her beauty, her well-preserved faculties, and her old-fashioned dignity, made her quite a graceful subject for conversation in turn with the Bang's health, the sweet new patterns in cotton dresses, the news from Egypt, and Lord Dacey's law-suit, which was fretting poor Lady Dacey to death. But no one ever thought