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Words: 54477 in 25 pages
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d very little tallow.
The attentive shopman leaned over the counter --he was half afraid she had come to make some complaint--and he inquired in those dulcet tones in which a distinct fear might have been read, what she required.
Mrs. Dorriman gazed at him a little helplessly and made no answer for a moment or so, and then, in a lower voice than was usual with her, she asked the way to the bank.
Good Mr. Forbes immediately reflected she might have had some bad news, and he moved a chair for her sympathetically, but she would not sit down. Throwing himself over the counter he went to the door and explained that the bank was higher up the street and on the right-hand side--indeed, as the town contained very little except the one very long straggling street, it would have been very difficult to have missed it.
Mrs. Dorriman bowed her thanks, looked out to see that the pony-carriage and boy were well out of sight, having a vague feeling that, if the boy knew she had gone to the bank, all her most private intentions might immediately become known to her brother. Murmuring something indistinct about coming back, she walked up the street, the paving of which was not carried out as a whole, but boasted only of flags before the bettermost houses, and the spaces between were of earth and often muddy.
The unwonted appearance of a lady walking along called every one to their door--the two butchers' shops, not rivals but friends, who killed one sheep on alternate days not to "interfere" with each other--the baker's shop with its complement of bare-footed children around it--the post-office with an imposing board and the most excellent sweeties in one window , were all passed, and not giving herself time to think, Mrs. Dorriman hurried on, entered the bank, and asked for Mr. Macfarlane.
Mr. Macfarlane, who had been occasionally at Inchbrae to see her on business, was a little startled by the advent of a woman who had never before been to the bank, and he naturally imagined that some bad news had brought her there.
"It is no bad news," said Mrs. Dorriman, her nervousness betraying itself in her voice; "but there is no one here I can go to about anything--and I want to ask your advice about something."
Mr. Macfarlane knew the world, and he knew also a good deal more about Mrs. Dorriman's position than she did herself. But he was a man who made it a rule never to interfere in any one's business, having enough of his own on his hands. Any one looking at him and having a knowledge of countenances would have seen at once that caution predominated over all other impulses. His expression was an absolute blank just now, and Mrs. Dorriman, who had instinctively turned to him in appeal, shrank a little, and he saw it.
"I am not a man fond of interfering," he said, gravely; "but I hope I can see when I can do a kindness, and do it--always supposing that in doing it I do no one any wrong."
"I want your advice," Mrs. Dorriman said, nervously. In asking advice was she doing her brother any wrong?
"To live with him?" Mr. Macfarlane was a little surprised, but he knew also that this could not be all. "I suppose he is anxious to have more of a home than a bachelor has as a rule," he said, after a pause.
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