Page:Gissing - Workers in the Dawn, vol. I, 1880.djvu/43

Rh clothing had undergone a reformation; but the handsome, pale, attenuated features, and the curling yellow hair were evidently those of poor Golding’s child. He seemed to follow his graceful little companion with reluctance, scarcely ever raising his eyes to look at the objects around him, but keeping them bent upon the grass.

The expression on his face was sorrowful in the extreme; tears seemed momentarily about to start from his eyes. The remarks which the little girl addressed to him he seemed not to understand; at all events, he scarcely attempted to answer them. The two were not quite alone, but were followed at the distance of a few yards by a cheerful-looking middle-aged woman, who knitted as she walked, casting each moment curious glances at the children in front of her. This was Mrs. Cope, the rector’s worthy housekeeper. In her cheeks still lived much of the bloom which had made her not a little admired, when, as a country maiden of sixteen, she had been called to act as handmaid of Edward Norman himself, then aged one year.

Mrs. Cope was now a widow, and among the most active of the plotters against Mr. Norman’s peace in Bloomford there were not a few who looked with a jealous eye upon this lady. If the rector had begun by marrying a tailor’s daughter, who could guarantee that