Redmain Tom's friend?--then stooping a little--it was an
unconscious, pretty trick she had--and holding them out, palm
pressed to palm, with the fingers toward his face.
"Letty," said Tom, frowning--and the frown deepened and deepened;
for had he not from the first, if in nothing else, taken trouble
to instruct her in what became the wife of Thomas Helmer, Esq.?--
"Letty, this won't do!"
Letty was frightened, but tried to think he was only pretending
to be displeased.
"Ah! don't frighten me, Tom," she said, with her merry hands now
changed to pleading ones, though their position and attitude
remained the same.
But he caught them by the wrists in both of his, and held them
tight.
"Letty," he said once more, and with increased severity, "this
won't do. I tell you, it won't do."
"What won't do, Tom?" she returned, growing white. "There's no
harm done."
"Yes, there is," said Tom, with solemnity; "there _is_ harm
done, when _my_ wife goes and does like that. What would
people say of _me,_ if they were to come to know--God forbid
they should!--that your husband was talking all the evening to
ladies at whose dresses his wife had been working all the
afternoon!--You don't know what you are doing, Letty. What do you
suppose the ladies would think if they were to hear of it?"
Poor, foolish Tom, ignorant in his folly, did not know how little
those grand ladies would have cared if his wife had been a char-
woman: the eyes of such are not discerning of fine social
distinctions in women who are not of their set, neither are the
family relations of the bohemians they invite of the smallest
consequence to them.
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