<h3 id="id03971" style="margin-top: 3em">CHAPTER XXXIV.</h3>
<h3 id="id03972" style="margin-top: 3em">UNDER AN UMBRELLA.</h3>
<p id="id03973" style="margin-top: 3em">Mrs. Barclay returned to her own room, and Mr. Dillwyn was forced to
follow her. The door was shut between them and the rest of the
household. Mrs. Barclay trimmed her fire, and her guest looked on
absently. Then they sat down on opposite sides of the fireplace; Mrs.
Barclay smiling inwardly, for she knew that Philip was impatient;
however, nothing could be more sedate to all appearance than she was.</p>
<p id="id03974">"Do you hear how the wind moans in the chimney?" she said. "That means
rain."</p>
<p id="id03975">"Rather dismal, isn't it?"</p>
<p id="id03976">"No. In this house nothing is dismal. There is a wholesome way of
looking at everything."</p>
<p id="id03977">"Not at money?"</p>
<p id="id03978">"It is no use, Philip, to talk to people about what they cannot
understand."</p>
<p id="id03979">"I thought understanding on that point was universal."</p>
<p id="id03980">"They have another standard in this family for weighing things, from
that which you and I have been accustomed to go by."</p>
<p id="id03981">"What is it?"</p>
<p id="id03982">"I can hardly tell you, in a word. I am not sure that I can tell you at
all. Ask Lois."</p>
<p id="id03983">"When can I ask her? Do you spend your evenings alone?"</p>
<p id="id03984">"By no means! Sometimes I go out and read 'Rob Roy' to them. Sometimes
the girls come to me for some deeper reading, or lessons."</p>
<p id="id03985">"Will they come to-night?"</p>
<p id="id03986">"Of course not! They would not interfere with your enjoyment of my
society."</p>
<p id="id03987">"Cannot you ask Lois in, on some pretext?"</p>
<p id="id03988">"Not without her sister. It is hard on you, Philip! I will do the best
for you I can; but you must watch your opportunity."</p>
<p id="id03989">Mr. Dillwyn gave it up with a good grace, and devoted himself to Mrs.
Barclay for the rest of the evening. On the other side of the wall
separating the two rooms, meanwhile a different colloquy had taken
place.</p>
<p id="id03990">"So that is one of your fine people?" said Miss Charity. "Well, I don't
think much of him."</p>
<p id="id03991">"I have no doubt he would return the compliment," said Madge.</p>
<p id="id03992">"No," said Lois; "I think he is too polite."</p>
<p id="id03993">"He was polite to grandmother," returned Charity. "Not to anybody else,
that I saw. But, girls, didn't he like the bread!"</p>
<p id="id03994">"I thought he liked everything pretty well," said Madge.</p>
<p id="id03995">"When's he goin'?" Mrs. Armadale asked suddenly.</p>
<p id="id03996">"Monday, some time," Madge answered. "Mrs. Barclay said 'until Monday.'<br/>
What time Monday I don't know."<br/></p>
<p id="id03997">"Well, we've got things enough to hold out till then," said Charity,
gathering up her dishes. "It's fun, too; I like to set a nice table."</p>
<p id="id03998">"Why, grandmother?" said Lois. "Don't you like Mrs. Barclay's friend?"</p>
<p id="id03999">"Well enough, child. I don't want him for none of our'n."</p>
<p id="id04000">"Why, grandmother?" said Madge.</p>
<p id="id04001">"His world ain't our world, children, and his hopes ain't our hopes—if
the poor soul has any. 'Seems to me he's all in the dark."</p>
<p id="id04002">"That's only on one subject," said Lois. "About everything else he
knows a great deal; and he has seen everything."</p>
<p id="id04003">"Yes," said Mrs. Armadale; "very like he has; and he likes to talk
about it; and he has a pleasant tongue; and he is a civil man. But
there's one thing he hain't seen, and that is the light; and one thing
he don't know, and that is happiness. And he may have plenty of
money—I dare say he has; but he's what I call a poor man. I don't want
you to have no such friends."</p>
<p id="id04004">"But grandmother, you do not dislike to have him in the house these two
days, do you?"</p>
<p id="id04005">"It can't be helped, my dear, and we'll do the best for him we can. But<br/>
I don't want <i>you</i> to have no such friends."<br/></p>
<p id="id04006">"I believe we should go out of the world to suit grandmother," remarked<br/>
Charity. "She won't think us safe as long as we're in it."<br/></p>
<p id="id04007">The whole family went to church the next morning. Mr. Dillwyn's
particular object, however, was not much furthered. He saw Lois,
indeed, at the breakfast table; and the sight was everything his fancy
had painted it. He thought of Milton's</p>
<p id="id04008" style="margin-top: 3em"> "Pensive nun, devout and pure,<br/>
Sober, stedfast, and demure"—<br/></p>
<p id="id04009" style="margin-top: 3em">only the description did not quite fit; for there was a healthy, sweet
freshness about Lois which gave the idea of more life and activity,
mental and bodily, than could consort with a pensive character. The
rest fitted pretty well; and the lines ran again and again through Mr.
Dillwyn's head. Lois was gone to church long before the rest of the
family set out; and in church she did not sit with the others; and she
did not come home with them. However, she was at dinner. But
immediately after dinner Mrs. Barclay with drew again into her own
room, and Mr. Dillwyn had no choice but to accompany her.</p>
<p id="id04010">"What now?" he asked. "What do you do the rest of the day?"</p>
<p id="id04011">"I stay at home and read. Lois goes to Sunday school."</p>
<p id="id04012">Mr. Dillwyn looked to the windows. The rain Mrs. Barclay threatened had
come; and had already begun in a sort of fury, in company with a wind,
which drove it and beat it, as it seemed, from all points of the
compass at once. The lines of rain-drops went slantwise past the
windows, and then beat violently upon them; the ground was wet in a few
minutes; the sky was dark with its thick watery veils. Wind and rain
were holding revelry.</p>
<p id="id04013">"She will not go out in this weather," said the gentleman, with
conviction which seemed to be agreeable.</p>
<p id="id04014">"The weather will not hinder her," returned Mrs. Barclay.</p>
<p id="id04015">"<i>This</i> weather?"</p>
<p id="id04016">"No. Lois does not mind weather. I have learned to know her by this
time. Where she thinks she ought to go, or what she thinks she ought to
do, there no hindrance will stop her. It is good you should learn to
know her too, Philip."</p>
<p id="id04017">"Pray tell me,—is the question of 'ought' never affected by what
should be legitimate hindrances?"</p>
<p id="id04018">"They are never credited with being legitimate," Mrs. Barclay said,
with a slight laugh. "The principle is the same as that old soldier's
who said, you know, when ordered upon some difficult duty, 'Sir, if it
is possible, it shall be done; and if it is impossible, it <i>must</i> be
done!'"</p>
<p id="id04019">"That will do for a soldier,", said Dillwyn. "At what o'clock does she
go?"</p>
<p id="id04020">"In about a quarter of an hour I shall expect to hear her feet
pattering softly through the hall, and then the door will open and shut
without noise, and a dark figure will shoot past the windows."</p>
<p id="id04021">Mr. Dillwyn left the room, and probably made some preparations; for
when, a few minutes later, a figure all wrapped up in a waterproof
cloak did pass softly through the hall, he came out of Mrs. Barclay's
room and confronted it; and I think his overcoat was on.</p>
<p id="id04022">"Miss Lois! you cannot be going out in this storm?"</p>
<p id="id04023">"O yes. The storm is nothing—only something to fight against."</p>
<p id="id04024">"But it blows quite furiously."</p>
<p id="id04025">"I don't dislike a wind," said Lois, laying her hand on the lock of the
door.</p>
<p id="id04026">"You have no umbrella?"</p>
<p id="id04027">"Don't need it. I am all protected, don't you see? Mr. Dillwyn, <i>you</i>
are not going out?"</p>
<p id="id04028">"Why not?"</p>
<p id="id04029">"But you have nothing to call you out?"</p>
<p id="id04030">"I beg your pardon. The same thing, I venture to presume, that calls
you out,—duty. Only in my case the duty is pleasure."</p>
<p id="id04031">"You are not going to take care of me?"</p>
<p id="id04032">"Certainly."</p>
<p id="id04033">"But there's no need. Not the least in the world."</p>
<p id="id04034">"From your point of view."</p>
<p id="id04035">He was so alertly ready, had the door open and his umbrella spread, and
stood outside waiting for her, Lois did not know how to get rid of him.
She would surely have done it if she could. So she found herself going
up the street with him by her side, and the umbrella warding off the
wind and rain from her face. It was vexatious and amusing. From her
face! who had faced Sharnpuashuh storms ever since she could remember.
It is very odd to be taken care of on a sudden, when you are
accustomed, and perfectly able, to take care of your self. It is also
agreeable.</p>
<p id="id04036">"You had better take my arm, Miss Lois," said her companion. "I could
shield you better."</p>
<p id="id04037">"Well," said Lois, half laughing, "since you are here, I may as well
take the good of it."</p>
<p id="id04038">And then Mr. Dillwyn had got things as he wanted them.</p>
<p id="id04039">"I ventured to assume, a little while ago, Miss Lois, that duty was
taking you out into this storm; but I confess my curiosity to know what
duty could have the right to do it. If my curiosity is indiscreet, you
can rebuke it."</p>
<p id="id04040">"It is not indiscreet," said Lois. "I have a sort of a Bible class, in
the upper part of the village, a quarter of a mile beyond the church."</p>
<p id="id04041">"I understood it was something of that kind, or I should not have
asked. But in such weather as this, surely they would not expect you?"</p>
<p id="id04042">"Yes, they would. At any rate, I am bound to show that I expect them."</p>
<p id="id04043">"<i>Do</i> you expect them, to come out to-day?"</p>
<p id="id04044">"Not all of them," Lois allowed. "But if there would not be one, still<br/>
I must be there."<br/></p>
<p id="id04045">"Why?—if you will pardon me for asking."</p>
<p id="id04046">"It is good they should know that I am regular and to be depended on.
And, besides, they will be sure to measure the depth of my interest in
the work by my desire to do it. And one can do so little in this world
at one's best, that one is bound to do all one can."</p>
<p id="id04047">"All one can," Mr. Dillwyn repeated.</p>
<p id="id04048">"You cannot put it at a lower figure. I was struck with a word in one
of Mrs. Barclay's books—'the Life and Correspondence of John
Foster,'—'Power, to its very last particle, is duty.'"</p>
<p id="id04049">"But that would be to make life a terrible responsibility."</p>
<p id="id04050">"Say noble—not terrible!" said Lois.</p>
<p id="id04051">"I confess it seems to me terrible also. I do not see how you can get
rid of the element of terribleness."</p>
<p id="id04052">"Yes,—if duty is neglected. Not if duty is done."</p>
<p id="id04053">"Who does his duty, at that rate?"</p>
<p id="id04054">"Some people <i>try</i>," said Lois.</p>
<p id="id04055">"And that trying must make life a servitude."</p>
<p id="id04056">"Service—not servitude!" exclaimed Lois again, with the same
wholesome, hearty ring in her voice that her companion had noticed
before.</p>
<p id="id04057">"How do you draw the line between them?" he asked, with an inward
smile; and yet Mr. Dillwyn was earnest enough too.</p>
<p id="id04058">"There is more than a line between them," said Lois. "There is all the
distance between freedom and slavery." And the words recurred to her,
"I will walk at liberty, <i>for I seek thy precepts;</i>" but she judged
they would not be familiar to her companion nor meet appreciation from
him, so she did not speak them. "<i>Service</i>," she went on, "I think is
one of the noblest words in the world; but it cannot be rendered
servilely. It must be free, from the heart."</p>
<p id="id04059">"You make nice distinctions. Service, I suppose you mean, of one's
fellow creatures?"</p>
<p id="id04060">"No," said Lois, "I do not mean that. Service must be given to God. It
will work out upon one's fellow-creatures, of course."</p>
<p id="id04061">"Nice distinctions again," said Mr. Dillwyn.</p>
<p id="id04062">"But very real! And very essential."</p>
<p id="id04063">"Is there not service—true service—that is given wholly to one's
needy fellows of humanity? It seems to me I have heard of such."</p>
<p id="id04064">"There is a good deal of such service," said Lois, "but it is not the
true. It is partial, and arbitrary; it ebbs and flows, and chooses; and
is found consorting with what is not service, but the contrary. True
service, given to God, and rising from the love of him, goes where it
is sent and does what it is bidden, and has too high a spring ever to
fail. Real service gives all, and is ready for everything."</p>
<p id="id04065">"How much do you mean, I wonder, by 'giving all'? Do you use the words
soberly?"</p>
<p id="id04066">"Quite soberly," said Lois, laughing.</p>
<p id="id04067">"Giving all what?"</p>
<p id="id04068">"All one's power,—according to Foster's judgment of it."</p>
<p id="id04069">"Do you know what that would end in?"</p>
<p id="id04070">"I think I do. How do you mean?"</p>
<p id="id04071">"Do you know how much a man or a woman would give who gave <i>all</i> he
had?"</p>
<p id="id04072">"Yes, of course I do."</p>
<p id="id04073">"What would be left for himself?"</p>
<p id="id04074">Lois did not answer at once; but then she stopped short in her walk and
stood still, in the midst of rain and wind, confronting her companion.
And her words were with an energy that she did not at all mean to give
them.</p>
<p id="id04075">"There would be left for him—all that the riches and love of God could
do for his child."</p>
<p id="id04076">Mr. Dillwyn gazed into the face that was turned towards him, flushed,
fired, earnest, full of a grand consciousness, as of a most simple
unconsciousness,—and for the moment did not think of replying. Then
Lois recollected herself, smiled at herself, and went on.</p>
<p id="id04077">"I am very foolish to talk so much," she said. "I do not know why I do.
Somehow I think it is your fault, Mr. Dillwyn. I am not in the habit, I
think, of holding forth so to people who ought to know better than
myself."</p>
<p id="id04078">"I am sure you are aware that I was speaking honestly, and that I do
<i>not</i> know better?" he said.</p>
<p id="id04079">"I suppose I thought so," Lois answered. "But that does not quite
excuse me. Only—I was sorry for you, Mr. Dillwyn."</p>
<p id="id04080">"Thank you. Now, may I go on? The conversation can hardly be so
interesting to you as it is to me."</p>
<p id="id04081">"I think I have said enough," said Lois, a little shyly.</p>
<p id="id04082">"No, not enough, for I want to know more. The sentence you quoted from
Foster, if it is true, is overwhelming. If it is true, it leaves all
the world with terrible arrears of obligation."</p>
<p id="id04083">"Yes," Lois answered half reluctantly,—"duty unfulfilled <i>is</i>
terrible. But, not 'all the world,' Mr. Dillwyn."</p>
<p id="id04084">"You are an exception."</p>
<p id="id04085">"I did not mean myself. I do not suppose I do all I ought to do. I do
try to do all I know. But there are a great many beside me, who do
better."</p>
<p id="id04086">"You agree then, that one is not bound by duties <i>unknown?</i>"</p>
<p id="id04087">Lois hesitated. "You are making me talk again, as if I were wise," she
said. "What should hinder any one from knowing his duty, Mr. Dillwyn."</p>
<p id="id04088">"Suppose a case of pure ignorance."</p>
<p id="id04089">"Then let ignorance study."</p>
<p id="id04090">"Study what?"</p>
<p id="id04091">"Mr. Dillwyn, you ought to ask somebody who can answer you better."</p>
<p id="id04092">"I do not know any such somebody."</p>
<p id="id04093">"Haven't you a Christian among all your friends?"</p>
<p id="id04094">"I have not a friend in the world, of whom I could ask such a question
with the least hope of having it answered."</p>
<p id="id04095">"Where is your minister?"</p>
<p id="id04096">"My minister? Clergyman, you mean? Miss Lois, I have been a wanderer
over the earth for years. I have not any 'minister.'"</p>
<p id="id04097">Lois was silent again. They had been walking fast, as well as talking
fast, spite of wind and rain; the church was left behind some time ago,
and the more comely and elegant part of the village settlement.</p>
<p id="id04098">"We shall have to stop talking now," Lois said, "for we are near my
place."</p>
<p id="id04099">"Which is your place?"</p>
<p id="id04100">"Do you see that old schoolhouse, a little further on? We have that for
our meetings. Some of the boys put it in order and make the fire for
me."</p>
<p id="id04101">"You will let me come in?"</p>
<p id="id04102">"You?" said Lois. "O no! Nobody is there but my class."</p>
<p id="id04103">"You will let me be one of them to-day? Seriously,—I am going to wait
to see you home; you will not let me wait in the rain?"</p>
<p id="id04104">"I shall bid you go home," said Lois, laughing.</p>
<p id="id04105">"I am not going to do that."</p>
<p id="id04106">"Seriously, Mr. Dillwyn, I do not need the least care."</p>
<p id="id04107">"Perhaps. But I must look at the matter from my point of view."</p>
<p id="id04108">What a troublesome man! thought Lois; but then they were at the
schoolhouse door, the wind and rain came with such a wild burst, that
it seemed the one thing to do to get under shelter; and so Mr. Dillwyn
went in with her, and how to turn him out Lois did not know.</p>
<p id="id04109">It was a bare little place. The sanded floor gave little help or
seeming of comfort; the wooden chairs and benches were old and hard;
however, the small stove did give out warmth enough to make the place
habitable, even to its furthest corners. Six people were already there.
Lois gave a rapid glance at the situation. There was no time, and it
was no company for a prolonged battle with the intruder.</p>
<p id="id04110">"Mr. Dillwyn," she said softly, "will you take a seat by the stove, as
far from us as you can; and make believe you have neither eyes nor
ears? You must not be seen to have either—by any use you make of them.
If you keep quite still, maybe they will forget you are here. You can
keep up the fire for us."</p>
<p id="id04111">She turned from him to greet her young friends, and Mr. Dillwyn obeyed
orders. He hung up his wet hat and coat and sat down in the furthest
corner; placing himself so, however, that neither eyes nor ears should
be hindered in the exercise of their vocation, while his attitude might
have suggested a fit of sleepiness, or a most indifferent meditation on
things far distant, or possibly rest after severe exertion. Lois and
her six scholars took their places at the other end of the room, which
was too small to prevent every word they spoke from being distinctly
heard by the one idle spectator. A spectator in truth Mr. Dillwyn
desired to be, not merely an auditor; so, as he had been warned he must
not be seen to look, he arranged himself in a manner to serve both
purposes, of seeing and not seeing.</p>
<p id="id04112">The hour was not long to this one spectator, although it extended
itself to full an hour and a half. He gave as close attention as ever
when a student in college he had given to lecture or lesson. And yet,
though he did this, Mr. Dillwyn was not, at least not at the time,
thinking much of the matter of the lesson. He was studying the
lecturer. And the study grew intense. It was not flattering to
perceive, as he soon did, that Lois had entirely forgotten his
presence. He saw it by the free unconcern with which she did her work,
as well as in the absorbed interest she gave to it. Not flattering, and
it cast a little shadow upon him, but it was convenient for his present
purpose of observation. So he watched,—and listened. He heard the
sweet utterance and clear enunciation, first of all; he heard them, it
is true, whenever she spoke; but now the utterance sounded sweeter than
usual, as if there were a vibration from some fuller than usual mental
harmony, and the voice was of a silvery melody. It contrasted with the
other voices, which were more or less rough or grating or nasal, too
high pitched or low, and rough-cadenced, as uncultured voices are apt
to be. From the voices, Mr. Dillwyn's attention was drawn to what the
voices said. And here he found, most unexpectedly, a great deal to
interest him. Those rough voices spoke words of genuine intelligence;
they expressed earnest interest; and they showed the speakers to be
acute, thoughtful, not uninformed, quick to catch what was presented to
them, often cunning to deal with it. Mr. Dillwyn was in danger of
smiling, more than once. And Lois met them, if not with the skill of a
practised logician, with the quick wit of a woman's intuition and a
woman's loving sympathy, armed with knowledge, and penetration, and
tact, and gentleness, and wisdom. It was something delightful to hear
her soft accents answer them, with such hidden strength under their
softness; it was charming to see her gentleness and patience, and
eagerness too; for Lois was talking with all her heart. Mr. Dillwyn
lost his wonder that her class came out in the rain; he only wished he
could be one of them, and have the privilege too!</p>
<p id="id04113">It was impossible but that with all this mental observation Mr.
Dillwyn's eyes should also take notice of the fair exterior before
them. They would not have been worthy to see it else. Lois had laid off
her bonnet in the hot little room; it had left her hair a little
loosened and disordered; yet not with what deserved to be called
disorder; it was merely a softening and lifting of the rich, full
masses, adding to the grace of the contour, not taking from it. Nothing
could be plainer than the girl's dress; all the more the observer's eye
noted the excellent lines of the figure and the natural charm of every
movement and attitude. The charm that comes, and always must come, from
inward refinement and delicacy, when combined with absence of
consciousness; and which can only be helped, not produced, by any
perfection of the physical structure. Then the tints of absolute
health, and those low, musical, sensitive tones, flowing on in such
sweet modulations—</p>
<p id="id04114">What a woman was this! Mr. Dillwyn could see, too, the effect of Mrs.
Barclay's work. He was sure he could. The whole giving of that Bible
lesson betrayed the refinement of mental training and culture; even the
management of the voice told of it. Here was not a fine machine, sound
and good, yet in need of regulating, and working, and lubricating to
get it in order; all that had been done, and the smooth running told
how well. By degrees Mr. Dillwyn forgot the lesson, and the class, and
the schoolhouse, and remembered but one thing any more; and that was
Lois. His head and heart grew full of her. He had been in the grasp of
a strong fancy before; a fancy strong enough to make him spend money,
and spend time, for the possible attainment of its object; now it was
fancy no longer. He had made up his mind, as a man makes it up once for
all; not to try to win Lois, but to have her. She, he saw, was as yet
ungrazed by any corresponding feeling towards him. That made no
difference. Philip Dillwyn had one object in life from this time. He
hardly saw or heard Lois's leave-takings with her class, but as she
came up to him he rose.</p>
<p id="id04115">"I have kept you too long, Mr. Dillwyn; but I could not help it; and
really, you know, it was your own fault."</p>
<p id="id04116">"Not a minute too long," he assured her; and he put on her cloak and
handed her her bonnet with grave courtesy, and a manner which Lois
would have said was absorbed, but for a certain element in it which
even then struck her. They set out upon their homeward way, but the
walk home was not as the walk out had been. The rain and the wind were
unchanged; the wind, indeed, had an added touch of waywardness as they
more nearly faced it, going this way; and the rain was driven against
them with greater fury. Lois was fain to cling to her companion's arm,
and the umbrella had to be handled with discretion. But the storm had
been violent enough before, and it was no feature of that which made
the difference. Neither was it the fact that both parties were now
almost silent, whereas on the way out they had talked incessantly;
though it was a fact. Perhaps Lois was tired with talking, seeing she
had been doing nothing else for two hours, but what ailed Philip? And
what gave the walk its new character? Lois did not know, though she
felt it in every fibre of her being. And Mr. Dillwyn did not know,
though the cause lay in him. He was taking care of Lois; he had been
taking care of her before; but now, unconsciously, he was doing it as a
man only does it for one woman in the world. Hardly more careful of
her, yet with that indefinable something in the manner of it, which
Lois felt even in the putting on of her cloak in the schoolhouse. It
was something she had never touched before in her life, and did not now
know what it meant; at least I should say her <i>reason</i> did not know;
yet nature answered to nature infallibly, and by some hidden intuition
of recognition the girl was subdued and dumb. This was nothing like Tom
Caruthers, and anything she had received from him. Tom had been
flattering, demonstrative, obsequious; there was no flattery here, and
no demonstration, and nothing could be farther from obsequiousness. It
was the delicate reverence which a man gives to only one woman of all
the world; something that must be felt and cannot be feigned; the most
subtle incense of worship one human spirit can render to another; which
the one renders and the other receives, without either being able to
tell how it is done. The more is the incense sweet, penetrating,
powerful. Lois went home silently, through the rain and wind, and did
not know why a certain mist of happiness seemed to encompass her. She
was ignorant why the storm was so very beneficent in its action; did
not know why the wind was so musical and the rain so refreshing; could
not guess why she was sorry to get home. Yet the fact was before her as
she stepped in.</p>
<p id="id04117">"It has done you no harm!" said Mr. Dillwyn, smiling, as he met Lois's
eyes, and saw her fresh, flushed cheeks. "Are you wet?"</p>
<p id="id04118">"I think not at all."</p>
<p id="id04119">"This must come off, however," he went on, proceeding to unfasten her
cloak; "it has caught more rain-drops than you know." And Lois
submitted, and meekly stood still and allowed the cloak, very wet on
one side, to be taken off her.</p>
<p id="id04120">"Where is this to go? there seems to be no place to hang it here."</p>
<p id="id04121">"O, I will hang it up to dry in the kitchen, thank you," said Lois,
offering to take it.</p>
<p id="id04122">"<i>I</i> will hang it up to dry in the kitchen,—if you will show me the
way. You cannot handle it."</p>
<p id="id04123">Lois could have laughed, for did she not handle everything? and did wet
or dry make any difference to her? However, she did not on this
occasion feel like contesting the matter; but with unwonted docility
preceded Mr. Dillwyn through the sitting-room, where were Mrs. Armadale
and Madge, to the kitchen beyond, where Charity was just putting on the
tea-kettle.</p>
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