“How bad for her!” said Aunt Katharine bluntly. “Children are never happy until they learn to obey.”
“That sort of system may answer with some children,” said Mrs Trevor; “but my poor delicate Philippa requires infinite tact.”
“What do you think, Miss Mervyn,” as a thin, careworn-looking lady entered, “of Philippa going out to-day? She wants to take her cousins into the garden for a little while.”
Miss Mervyn looked anxiously from mother to daughter.
“She has been coughing this morning, and the wind is cold,” she began, when she was interrupted by an angry burst of tears from Philippa.
“I must go out,” she cried between her sobs. “You’re a cross thing to say it’s cold. I will go out.”
“There, there, my darling,” said Mrs Trevor; “do control yourself. You shall go.—Pray, Miss Mervyn, take care that she is warmly dressed, and has goloshes and a thick veil. You will, of course, go with the children, and keep to the sheltered places, and on no account allow Philippa to run on the grass or to get overheated.”
Philippa’s tears and sobs ceased at once, and soon muffled up to the eyes, she was ready to go out with her cousins, followed by the patient Miss Mervyn, and Mrs Trevor was left at liberty to bestow some attention on her guest. As soon as they were out of sight of the windows, Philippa’s first action was to tear off the white knitted shawl which was wrapped round her neck and mouth.
“If you don’t keep that on, we must go in again,” said Miss Mervyn.
“I won’t wear it, and I won’t go in,” said Philippa. “If you tease about it, I shall scream, and then I shall be ill; and then it will be your fault.”