er husband was, and, hearing that he was in
the workshop, refused offers of fetching him in, and went out to speak
to him, leaving Henrietta to sit by the fire and wait for him. A weary
waiting time she found it; shy as she was of poor people, as of a class
with whom she was utterly unacquainted, feeling bound to make herself
agreeable, but completely ignorant how to set about it, wishing to talk
to the old man, and fearing to neglect him, but finding conversation
quite impossible except with Mrs. Daniels, and not very easy with
her--she tried to recollect what storied young ladies did say to old
men, but nothing she could think of would do, or was what she could find
herself capable of saying. At last she remembered, in "Gertrude," the
old nurse's complaint that Laura did not inquire after the rheumatism,
and she hazarded her voice in expressing a hope that Mr. Daniels did not
suffer from it. Clear as the sweet voice was, it was too tremulous (for
she was really in a fright of embarrassment) to reach the old man's
ear, and his daughter-in-law took it upon her to repeat the inquiry in
a shrill sharp scream, that almost went through her ears; then while
the old man was answering something in a muttering maundering way, she
proceeded with a reply, and told a long story about his ways with the
doctor, in her Sussex dialect, almost incomprehensible to Henrietta. The
conversation dropped, until Mrs. Daniels began hoping that every one at
the Hall was quite well, and as she inquired after them one by one,
this took up a reasonable time; but then again followed a silence. Mrs.
Daniels was not a native of Knight Sutton, or she would have had more to
say about Henrietta's mother; but she had never seen her before, and had
none of that interest in her that half the parish felt. Henrietta wished
there had been a baby to notice, but she saw no trace in the room of the
existence of children, and did not like to ask if there were any. She
looked at the open hearth, and said it was very comfortable, and was
told in return that it made a great draught, and smoked very much. Then
she bethought herself of admiring an elaborately worked frame sampler,
that hung against the wall; and the conversation this supplied lasted
her till, to her great joy, grandpapa made his appearance again, and
summoned her to return, as it was already growing very dark.

She thought he might have made something of an apology for the
disagreeableness of his frien