He liked his brother to be with him in the
home in which he had been born, but he would not welcome his brother's
friends. He was greatly attached to the sister, who was half a dozen years
older than himself, but the idea that she could desire any other company
than his own, had not apparently presented itself.
"There are some things a man can never learn," the mid-Victorian Ada said
to herself, when Sir Francis prophesied that she would find a companion a
bore. "And one is that a woman, however happily situated in a man's house,
must have another woman easy of access to talk with, to sew with, to
whisper to."
CHAPTER XXVI
A Householder
When it was explained to her that a man was to be put into the shop to
give her a holiday, Mrs. Day refused the indulgence. Her heart was broken,
but she was not ill. To have had a little time to give to Franky--to take
him for walks in the country, to read to him, to help him with his
favourite occupation of painting old numbers of the _Illustrated News_ and
_Punch_ would have been a joy. Often she had longed for the leisure to do
these things. But now that Franky was gone, where was the use of leisure?
She did not even want the leisure to cry.
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