Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/227

 Sampson, the grey old manager of Buxton and Co.’s, led her away as soon as she would turn her face to listen to him. He was a stout, irritable man. He elbowed his way roughly through the crowd, and Lois followed him, her head high, her lips closed. He led her for some distance without speaking, then at last, unable to contain his garrulous irritability, he broke out:

“What do they expect? What can they expect? They can’t expect to stand a bad time. They spring up like mushrooms as big as a house-side, but there’s no stability in ’em. I remember William Selby when he’d run on my errands. Yes, there’s some as can make much out of little, and there’s some as can make much out of nothing, but they find it won’t last. William Selby’s sprung up in a day, and he’ll vanish in a night. You can’t trust to luck alone. Maybe he thinks it’s a lucky thing this fire has come when things are looking black. But you can’t get out of it as easy as that. There’s been a few too many of ’em. No, indeed, a fire’s the last thing I should hope to come to—the very last!”

Lois hurried and hurried, so that she brought the old manager panting in distress up the steps of her home. She could not bear to hear him talking so. They could get no one to open the door for some time. When at last Lois ran upstairs, she found her mother dressed, but all unbuttoned again, lying back in the chair in her daughter’s room, suffering from palpitation of the heart, with “Sesame and Lilies” crushed beneath her. Lois administered brandy, and her decisive words and movements helped largely to bring the good lady to a state of