Higgins's door was locked the next day, when they went to pay their call on the widow Boucher: but they learnt this time from an officious neighbour, that he was really from home. He had, however, been in to see Mrs. Boucher, before starting on his day's business, whatever that was. It was but an unsatisfactory visit to Mrs. Boucher; she considered herself an ill-used woman by her poor husband's suicide; and there was quite germ of truth enough in this idea to make it a very difficult one to refute. Still, it was unsatisfactory to see how completely her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and this selfishness extended even to her relations with her children, whom she considered as incumbrances, even in the very midst of her somewhat animal affection for them. Margaret tried to make acquaintances with one or two of them, while her father strove to raise the widow's thoughts into some higher channel than that of mere helpless querulousness. She found that the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow. Daddy had been a kind daddy to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown, some indulgence granted by the lost father.
"Is yon thing upstairs really him? it doesna look like him. I'm feared on it, and I never was feared o' daddy."

Higgins's door was locked the next day: but they learnt from a neighbour that he was really away from home. He had, however, been in to see Mrs. Boucher, whom Margaret and her father visited next.
It was an unsatisfactory visit: Mrs. Boucher considered herself ill-used by her poor husband's suicide; and there was truth enough in this idea to make it difficult to refute. Her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and this selfishness extended even to her children, whom she considered as incumbrances, in the very midst of her affection for them. While Mr. Hale spoke to her, Margaret talked to one or two of the children, and found that they were truer and simpler mourners than the widow. Daddy had been kind to them; each could tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shown by the lost father.
'Is yon thing upstairs really him? It doesna look like him. I'm feared on it, and I never was feared o' daddy.'
