Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/324

300 Mrs. Roper. "The house will be so lonely like. I shan't know myself; that I shan't. And now that things are all settled so pleasantly, and that the Lupexes must go on Tuesday I'll tell you what, Sally; I'll pay for the cab myself, and I'll start off to Dulwich by the omnibus to-morrow, and settle it all out of my own pocket. I will indeed. Come; there's the cab. Let me go down, and send him away."

"I'll do that," said Eames. "It's only sixpence, off the stand," Mrs. Roper called to him as he left the room. But the cabman got a shilling, and John, as he returned, found Jemima in the act of carrying Miss Spruce's boxes back to her room. "So much the better for poor Caudle," said he to himself. "As he has gone into the trade it's well that he should have somebody that will pay him."

Mrs. Roper followed Miss Spruce up the stairs and Johnny was left with Amelia. "He's written to you, I know," said she, with her face turned a little away from him. She was certainly very handsome, but there was a hard, cross, almost sullen look about her, which robbed her countenance of all its pleasantness. And yet she had no intention of being sullen with him.

"Yes," said John. "He has told me how it's all going to be."

"Well?" she said.

"Well?" said he.

"Is that all you've got to say?"

"I'll congratulate you, if you'll let me."

"Psha;—congratulations! I hate such humbug. If you've no feelings about it, I'm sure that I've none. Indeed I don't know what's the good of feelings. They never did me any good. Are you engaged to marry L. D.?"

"No, I am not."

"And you've nothing else to say to me?"

"Nothing,—except my hopes for your happiness. What else can I say? You are engaged to marry my friend Cradell, and I think it will be a happy match."

She turned away her face further from him, and the look of it became even more sullen. Could it be possible that at such a moment she still had a hope that he might come back to her?

"Good-by, Amelia," he said, putting out his hand to her.

"And this is to be the last of you in this house!"

"Well, I don't know about that. I'll come and call upon you, if you'll let me, when you're married."