And she had obeyed him without a question. Whatever he did or
said she had counted right.
'We have not had a happy life, though there are many who have envied us
her ladyship's favour,' she said in the midst of her lamentations. 'No
one knows where the shoe pinches but those who have to wear it. Poor
James! Early and late, early and late, studying her ladyship's
interests, caring and thinking, in order to keep trouble away from her.
Always on the watch always on the listen. That's what wore him out, poor
fellow!'
'My good soul, your husband was an old man,' argued Lord Hartfield, in
a consolatory tone, 'and the end must come to all of us somehow.'
'He might have lived to be a much older man if he had had less worry,'
said the wife, bending her face to kiss the cold dead brow. 'His days
were full of care. We should have been happier in the poorest cottage in
Grasmere than we ever were in this big grand house.'
Thus, in broken fragments of speech, Mrs. Steadman lamented over her
dead, while the heavy pendulum of the eight-day clock in the hall
sounded the slowly-passing moments, until the coming of the doctor broke
upon the quiet of the house, with the noise of opening doors and
approaching footsteps.
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