The Freemason's Daughter: A Novel — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

44 THE FREEMASONS DAUGHTER. “You are wonderfully charitable!’ said Gilbert, with a sneer, for he was not the dupe of his partner’s pretended benevolence. ‘‘ You had better attend to the affairs of the firm—lI can see to my old clerk’s condition myself.” “ You?” repeated Small, with an expression of ill- disguised astonishment. ““I—unless you see some very particular objec- tion ?”” The little man tried to look indifferent. ‘“‘Or pretend to engross all the humanity of the firm yourself.” The carriage was ordered round the narrow lane to the residence of the Widow Bentley, at whose house the old clerk for the last twenty years had been a lodger. As the vehicle drove off, Mr. Small muttered to himself :— “¢ Decidedly there must be a secret !”° Great was the astonishment in Manton Lane, when the elegant equipage of the rich merchant drove up to the door of the poor widow. It was seldom that any vehicle more aristocratic than a cab traversed the dark narrow precincts, inhabited chiefly by factory hands, and one or two clerks of the old shool, whose limited means did not permit of their migrating to a more gen- teel atmosphere. A group of women and children were gathered round the widow’s door, for her lodger was generally loved in the humble neighbourhood from the benevolence of his disposition, and the readiness he COniiclooecl SS (SO