I had been wondering when it would
happen. To Dick's astonishment it happened then.
Yes, she answered, there had been an accident. Did he suppose that
seven scrimpy scraps of bacon was her notion of a lunch between four
hungry persons? Did he, judging from himself, imagine that our
family yielded only lunatics? Was it kind--was it courteous to his
parents, to the mother he pretended to love, to the father whose grey
hairs he was by his general behaviour bringing down in sorrow to the
grave--to assume without further enquiry that their eldest daughter
was an imbecile? (My hair, by-the-bye, is not grey. There may be a
suggestion of greyness here and there, the natural result of deep
thinking. To describe it in the lump as grey is to show lack of
observation. And at forty-eight--or a trifle over--one is not going
down into the grave, not straight down. Robina when excited uses
exaggerated language. I did not, however, interrupt her; she meant
well. Added to which, interrupting Robina, when--to use her own
expression--she is tired of being a worm, is like trying to stop a
cyclone with an umbrella.) Had his attention been less concentrated
on the guzzling of cold bacon (he had only had four mouthfuls, poor
fellow)--had he noticed the sweet patient child starving before his
very eyes (this referred to Veronica)--his poor elder sister, worn
out with work and worry, pining for nourishment herself, it might
have occurred to even his intelligence that there had been an
accident.
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