"Don't contradict me," said Aunt Sarah severely. "There is one thing I will not stand from servants and children and that is impertinence. You can go to my room and stay there till I can inquire into this. I'll sleep with Mary Lee. You don't cross the threshold of that room till your mother says so."
Nan's indignation by this time had risen to its greatest height. If she were to be punished for one impertinence, why not for more? So she turned and said: "You needn't touch me; I'll go. But I'll tell you one thing; that I don't believe my grandmother is half as wicked as you are and she'd not treat me this way no matter what. If I do go to your room I shall ask the Lord to bless her in her down-sittings and her up-risings just the same. You can write to my mother if you want to, and ask her if I did wrong to go to see my Aunt Helen. I know what she will say and I'll ask her if I can't stay there altogether till she comes back. They wouldn't call me a story-teller and they'd treat me better than you do. They are nearer kin anyhow."
Having delivered herself of this indignant speech, Nan took to her heels, reached the house, ran to her aunt's room and slammed the door after her, then she burst into tears of rage. Never before had her temper brought her to the making of such remarks to Aunt Sarah. They had had their little tiffs but such anger on both sides had never been displayed.
If there was one subject above another upon which Miss Sarah was excitable, it was the Corner family. She resented to the very core of her being the elder Mrs. Corner's neglect of her son's family, and that Nan should deliberately make overtures aroused all her indignation. Nan could have said nothing to enrage her more than to compare her unfavorably with Mrs. Corner, senior. So there was open war between them and Nan might well feel that she had gone too far.
However, the girl was more aggrieved and angry than sorry, and was specially annoyed that she had been sent to her aunt's room; that seemed to her a needless severity, for what harm would there be in allowing her to occupy the room she shared with her sisters? But it was some satisfaction, Nan reflected, that her aunt was punishing herself likewise, for she disliked a bedfellow.
It was not long before Jack's pattering feet were heard upon the stair and presently she burst into the larger room calling: "Nannie, Nannie, where are you?"
"Here," answered Nan in a depressed voice.
Jack stuck her head in at the door. "What you in here for, Nan?" she asked.
"Aunt Sarah sent me," returned Nan, biting her lip and trying to keep the tears back.
"Why, what for?"