'Do you want me any longer, ma’am? ' inquired Liddy, at a later hour the same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick in her hand, and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in the large parlour beside the first fire of the season.
'No more to-night, Liddy. ' 'I’ll sit up for master if you like, ma’am. I am not at all afraid of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle.
She was such a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn’t appear to anybody if it tried, I’m quite sure. ' 'Oh no, no! You go to bed.
I’ll sit up for him myself till twelve o’clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him up and go to bed too. ' 'It is half-past ten now. ' 'Oh! is it? ' 'Why don’t you sit upstairs, ma’am?
' 'Why don’t I? ' said Bathsheba, desultorily. 'It isn’t worth while—there’s a fire here, Liddy,' she suddenly exclaimed in an impulsive and excited whisper, 'have you heard anything strange said of Fanny?
' The words had no sooner escaped her than an expression of unutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears. 'No—not a word! ' said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman with astonishment. 'What is it makes you cry so, ma’am; has anything hurt you?
' She came to Bathsheba’s side with a face full of sympathy. 'No, Liddy—I don’t want you any more. I can hardly say why I have taken so to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night. ' Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.
Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually than she had been before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to that of the present time as the solitude