Mother and Son Read Free Page B

continued, as if no break had occurred.
    â€œThere is another position in the neighbourhood, miss; as housekeeper to two single ladies; on a smaller scale, but not enough to be a detriment.”
    â€œI would rather be with two women than with a married couple and a family,” said Miss Burke, as though the latter struck her as an abnormal situation, as possibly it did.
    â€œOne can feel among the superfluous,” said Bates. “Which is not as it should be, the truth being otherwise.”
    â€œI suppose one has to be that. It is a condition of being needed. No one wants a person who is necessary to someone else.”
    â€œWhich is deep,” said Bates. “Well, I hope we shall meet again. We share the dignity of earning bread.”
    â€œIf dignity is what it is. I should prefer other kinds of it.”
    â€œI will give you the ladies’ address, miss. It is some stations along the line. You could mention that I sent you. The houses do not visit, but my name will speak.”
    Bates accompanied Miss Burke to the door, but found she was anticipated. Rosebery stood ready to open it, and having done so, took his hat from the stand and stepped after the stranger out of the house.
    â€œYou would not ask me to countenance your walking alone in the dusk? It would indeed be much to expect.”
    â€œIt is very kind of you, Mr. Hume.”
    â€œRather is it a matter of course and a privilege. It may happen that the two things coincide.”
    â€œThe days are shortening, but I am not a nervous person.”
    â€œIt is an eerie road,” said Rosebery, glancing behind him in a manner that precluded his making a similar claim. “I do not lose that impression, familiar though I am with it.”
    â€œI am not troubled by eeriness. I am concerned with more definite things.”
    â€œBut for ladies the vaguer ones have their menace.”
    â€œWell, men may be inclined to think so.”
    â€œAnd may be right,” said Rosebery, who went further than this and enjoyed the thought. “It is easy to imagine footsteps behind one, when they are echoes of one’s own.”
    He proved his words when he turned homewards, and hastened his steps until he had escaped from the pursuing echoes into the house.
    â€œWhere have you been?” said Miranda.
    â€œAlong the road as far as the village, Mother.”
    â€œWith Miss Burke?”
    â€œWith whom else? Who but her was in a similar plight?”
    â€œYou looked disturbed when you came in,” said Francis.
    â€œAnd I was disturbed, Francis, or had been so. By the idea of a woman walking alone along a deserted road at dusk. I accompanied her as far as the houses, where the lights begin.”
    â€œAnd had to come back by yourself,” said Julius.
    â€œWell, naturally, Father. I could hardly expect her to perform the same office for me. It would have been a case of our going to and fro ‘ad infinitum.’”
    â€œOne of the boys could have gone with her,” said Miranda.
    â€œBut one of the boys did not offer to, Mother. So the privilege fell to me. And I can claim that I found it such.”
    â€œYou have a lofty character,” said Francis.
    â€œWell, I hope an ordinary manly one.”
    â€œThere seems little difference,” said Alice.
    â€œPerhaps there should not be too much,” said her cousin.
    â€œBates, what did Miss Burke say to you?” said Miranda, who changed the talk at will.
    â€œThere were casual words, ma’am.”
    â€œDid she speak about me?”
    â€œWell, ma’am, she alluded to the outcome.”
    â€œWhat else did you talk about?”
    â€œTopics arose, ma’am.”
    â€œWhere was she going after this?”
    â€œThere is a position, ma’am, in the vicinity.”
    â€œYou mean she is going to apply for it?”
    â€œWell, to appraise it, ma’am.”
    â€œWas she upset by my refusing her?”
    â€œWell,