![]() ![]() 'I should hardly think he would come today.' 'Then I hope this London man won't come for I don't know what I should do, papa.' Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipper - piph-ph-ph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get up till tomorrow.' 'Afraid not - eh-h-h! - very much afraid I shall not, Elfride. ![]() 'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf. 'Come in!' was always answered in a heart out-of-door voice from the inside. After finishing her household supervision Elfride became restless, and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-door. “On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from an attack of gout. ![]()
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