"They do, too," said Susan, diverted for the minute; "they certainly do. Oh, it is so nice, I so adore to hear all about things again. Matilda just shut everybody out. She didn't like company."
"She was pretty busy, you know."
"She hadn't any more to do than you have. She hadn't so much to do as you have, because she didn't do a thing you do."
"But you were ill. She was always up and down stairs—"
"No, she wasn't, Jane. No, she wasn't."
"Well, she had your meals to carry upstairs."
"I don't call it meals to run with a teacup. Meals! Such meals! It's a wonder I didn't die. She'd turn anything upside down on a plate and something else upside down on that, and call it a meal for me. I was about sick, just from how she fed me. If I said something was cooked too dry, she emptied the tea-kettle into it next time; and if I said anything was too wet, she put on fresh coal and left it in the oven over night. If I said the room was too light, she shut it up as dark as a pickpocket; and if I said it was too dark, she turned the sun into my eyes. She's my only sister and I must humor her, but I've had a very hard time, Jane, and I don't blame myself for waking up with my teeth all of a chatter over the thought of living with her again."
Jane had their breakfast ready now on the table by the window. "Come and sit down," she said; "we'll talk while we eat. It's like I told you last night,—there must be a hitch somewhere. Of course, God has a good reason for you and Aunt Matilda living together. He doesn't allow accidents in His world."
"Perhaps He wasn't thinking. I can't believe that anybody would deliberately put anybody in the house with Matilda—not if they knew Matilda. I didn't know what she'd grown into myself when she first came to take care of me, because I was a little poorly. It was to save spending on a nurse, you know. They're such trying, prying things, nurses are."
"I'm a nurse, you know."