wearing a flower too artificial.

'It was so sudden! so sad!' she continued. 'We esteemed him so much.
I thought you might be in need of sympathy, and hoped I might--Dear Mrs.
Harrington! can you bear to speak of it?'

'I can tell you anything you wish to hear, my lady,' the widow replied.
Lady Racial had expected to meet a woman much more like what she
conceived a tradesman's wife would be: and the grave reception of her
proffer of sympathy slightly confused her. She said:

'I should not have come, at least not so early, but Sir Jackson, my
husband, thought, and indeed I imagined--You have a son, Mrs. Harrington?
I think his name is--'

'Evan, my lady.'

'Evan. It was of him we have been speaking. I imagined that is, we
thought, Sir Jackson might--you will be writing to him, and will let him
know we will use our best efforts to assist him in obtaining some
position worthy of his--superior to--something that will secure him from
the harassing embarrassments of an uncongenial employment.'

The widow listened to this tender allusion to the shears without a smile
of gratitude. She replied: 'I hope my son will return in time to bury
his father, and he will thank you himself, my lady.'

'He has no taste for--a--for anything in the shape of trade, has he, Mrs.
Harrington?'