Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/186

176 creature must be to you, Mrs. Huntingdon!" he observed with a touch of sadness in his intonation, as he admiringly contemplated the infant.

"It is," replied I; and then I asked after his mother and sister.

He politely answered my enquiries, and then returned again to the subject I wished to avoid; though with a degree of timidity that witnessed his fear to offend.

"You have not heard from Huntingdon lately?" he said.

"Not this week," I replied.—Not these three weeks, I might have said.

"I had a letter from him this morning. I wish it were such a one as I could show to his lady." He half drew from his waistcoat pocket a letter with Arthur's still beloved hand on the address, scowled at it, and put it back again, adding—"But he tells me he is about to return next week."

"He tells me so every time he writes."