Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/118

108 Sidney, I ain’t got nothing to say against it, if she can find some kind of job for home. I know as the time must hang heavy. There she sit, poor thing! from mornin’ to night, an can’t get her thoughts away from herself. It’s easy enough to understand, ain’t it? I took a book home for her the other day, but she didn’t seem to care about it. There she sit, with her poor face on her hands, thinkin’ and thinkin’. It breaks my heart to see her. I’d rather she had some work, but she mustn’t go away from home for it.”

Sidney took a few steps in silence.

“You don’t misunderstand me,” resumed the other, with suddenness. “You don’t think as I won’t trust her away from me. If she went, it ’ud be because she thinks herself a burden,—as if I wouldn’t gladly live on a crust for my day’s food an’ spare her goin’ among strangers! You can think yourself what it ’ud be to her, Sidney. No, no, it mustn’t be nothing o’ that kind. But I can’t bear to see her livin’ as she does; it’s no life at all. I sit with her when I get back home at night, an’ I’m glad to say she seems to find it a pleasure to have me by her; but it’s the only bit o’