“I really think I can get about to-morrow,” said she; “and then, dear Lucy, I need not keep you longer from your home.”
“You are in a great hurry to get rid of me, I think. I suppose Mr. Crawley has been complaining again about the cream in his tea.” Mr. Crawley had on one occasion stated his assured conviction that surreptitious daily supplies were being brought into the house, because he had detected the presence of cream instead of milk in his own cup. As, however, the cream had been going for sundry days before this, Miss Robarts had not thought much of his ingenuity in making the discovery.
“Ah, you do not know how he speaks of you when your back is turned.”
“And how does he speak of me? I know you would not have the courage to tell me the whole.”
“No, I have not; for you would think it absurd coming from one who looks like him. He says that if he were to write a poem about womanhood, he would make you the heroine.”
“With a cream-jug in my hand, or else sewing buttons on to a shirt-collar. But he never forgave me about the mutton broth. He told me, in so many words, that I was a—storyteller. And for the matter of that, my dear, so I was.”
“He told me that you were an angel.”
“Goodness gracious!”
“A ministering angel. And so you have been. I can almost feel it in my heart to be glad that I have been ill, seeing that I have had you for my friend.”
“But you might have had that good fortune without the fever.”