Out in the cold world by MFS Author:Mary Seymour Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. j|OT a place ?' This was Hilton's first word to his daughter, when on his return in the evening he found her making ready his supper as u... more »sual. It was spoken roughly, but his face relaxed a little in listening to her account of the events of the day; and rubbing his hands, he drew a chair to the fire, seeming inclined to be talkative. ' I knew what I was about,' he said. ' If it hadn't been for me, you'd have sat looking at the floor as if a " pla.ce " was something as'd drop down the chimney for you to take or leave as you might choose. It isn't much of a thing you've found, certainly, but it's better thannothing; and I've given notice that I shouldn't keep on these lodgings after Monday.' ' Are you going far ?' Ada ventured to ask; but Hilton was not disposed to afford her much information, and only admitted that he should ' make shift with a room somewhere or other.' ' I'll look you up once in a way, just to see how you get on,' he added; and his child wondered at herself because this gave her no pleasure, even though he was the only person in all the world whom she could regard as belonging to her. . The only one—so she reflected, and so she had always believed; but it happened that on this her last night under the same roof as her father, she was to hear more than she had hitherto been aware of. ' If you hadn't managed to get somewhere within this next day or two,' he continued, 'I'd have sent you down to your mother's people. I suppose some of them must be living, though it's fairly long since I heard anything about them.' ' Mother's people ?' cried Ada, too much startled to be sensible of that fear of her father which ordinarily hindered her fromquestioning him; ' had she anyone living that belonged to her there ? she never told me !...« less