Oh! Mrs. Bolton, if you can do anything to help
her, now is the time to do it. It will get too hard to be rooted up by
and by. I know that by my poor brother. He'll never leave it off till
he's on his deathbed and can't get it. James Brown, your butler, ma'am,
is always talking to him, and exciting him about what he's got charge of
in your cellars; and they sit here talking about it for an hour at a
time, till they go off to the Upton Arms. I hate the very sound of it."
"But I must have cellars, and I must have a butler," said Mrs. Bolton,
somewhat angrily. She was fond of Ann Holland, and liked the reverence
she had always paid to her. But this ridiculous notion of Mr. Warden's
seemed to have taken possession of the poor, uneducated woman's brain,
and threatened to undermine her influence over her. She cut short her
visit to her at this point, and returned home uncomfortable and
disturbed, wishing she had never offered the shelter of her roof to her
nephew's unhappy and weak-minded wife.
Presently, as the dreary winter wore away, Mr. Warden began to shun the
sight of Sophy Chantrey.
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