He entered
the house by the back way, and found his sister, the clergyman's wife,
sitting alone over her work in the parlor.
"Where is your husband, Lizzie?" he asked, taking a chair in a corner.
"William has gone out to see a sick person. He had just time enough
before he went," she added, with a smile, "to tell me about the young
lady; and he declares he will never trust himself at Aldborough with you
again until you are a steady, married man." She stopped, and looked at
her brother more attentively than she had looked at him yet. "Robert!"
she said, laying aside her work, and suddenly crossing the room to him.
"You look anxious, you look distressed. William only laughed about your
meeting with the young lady. Is it serious? Tell me; what is she like?"
He turned his head away at the question.
She took a stool at his feet, and persisted in looking up at him. "Is it
serious, Robert?" she repeated, softly.
Kirke's weather-beaten face was accustomed to no concealments--it
answered for him before he spoke a word. "Don't tell your husband till I
am gone," he said, with a roughness quite new in his sister's experience
of him. "I know I only deserve to be laughed at; but it hurts me, for
all that.
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