I can only be ready to befriend him if the chance offers." They said no more of him then, but Hope persuaded Fanny to come to Lawrence Newt's Christmas dinner, to which they had all been bidden.
"And I will make him understand about it," she said, as she went down the steps.
Mrs.Dinks sat upon the door-step for some time.

There was nobody to see her whom she knew, and if there had been she would not have cared.

She did not know how long she had been sitting there, for she was thinking of other things, but she was roused by hearing her husband's voice: "Well, by G----! that's a G---- d---- pretty business--squatting on a door-step like a servant girl! Come in, I tell you, and shut the door." From long habit Fanny did not pay the least attention to this order.

But after some time she rose and closed the door, and clattered along the entry and up stairs, upon the worn and ragged carpet.

Mr.Alfred Dinks returned to the parlor, pulled the bell violently, and when the sloppy servant girl appeared, glaring at him with the staring eyes, he immediately damned them, and wanted to know why in h---- he was kept waiting for his boots.