“Do come and sit down for a minute, Mrs. Brandon,” she said, refraining from the words ‘how tired you look.’ “I wonder if you could help us. My brother Colin has a friend, a Mrs. Arbuthnot, whose husband was killed in the war, and she wants a little house somewhere near Barchester. If you ever hear of anything, will you let me know?”
Colin, hearing his own name mentioned, came and sat down by them.
“Poor young thing,” said Mrs. Brandon. “I was left a widow very young, you know, though it was only pneumonia.”
“Never mind, mamma dear,” said Francis, who had brought the lees and dregs of the drink for consumption on the premises. “We can’t always have a war and I am sure my father would have been killed if he could have managed it. And you didn’t tell Lydia that the pneumonia was at Cannes
