“I wonder at thee. Jane niver gives or lends anything to anybody, but to Jane.”
“She says she is going to entertain many great people this winter and she wishes me to meet them so I think she might help me to make a good appearance.”
“I wouldn’t wonder if she asked thy father to pay her for introducing thee into the titled set. She writes about them and talks about them and I dare warrant dreams about them.”
“Oh, mother!”
“Does she ever forget that she has managed to become Lady Leyland? She thinks that two syllables before her name makes her better than her own family. Chut! Katherine! Leyland is only the third of the line. It was an official favor, too—what merit there is in it has not yet been discovered. We have lived in this old house three hundred years, and three hundred before that in old Britain.”
“Old Britain?”
“To be sure—in Glamorganshire, I believe. Ask thy father. He knows his genealogy by heart. I see him coming. Go and meet him.”
“Yes, mother, but I think I will write a short note to Aunt Josepha. I will not name business, nor money, nor even my desire to make a visit to London.”
“Write such a letter if thou wishes but take the result—whatever it is—in a good humor. Remember that thy aunt’s temper, and her words also, are entirely without frill.”
“That, of course. It is the Annis temper.”