"What is there for me to say more, Aunt Sarah?"
"You ought to say that you would not vex and disobey me any more," declared her Aunt. "Here I have told everybody that I should pass next summer at the Count's ancestral castle in Hungary, and how can I if you won't marry him?"
"You might marry him yourself."
Her aunt glared at her angrily, and emitted a most unladylike snort of contempt.
"You say that to be nasty," she retorted; "but I tell you, miss, that I've thought of that myself. I'm not sure I shan't marry him."
Alice regarded her in a silence which drew forth a fresh volley.
"I suppose you think that's absurd, do you? Why don't you say that I'm too old, and too ugly, and too ridiculous? Why don't you say it? I can see that you think it; and a nice thing it is to think, too."
"If you think it, Aunt Sarah," was the demure reply, "there's no need of my saying it."
"I think it? I don't think it! I'm pleased to know at last what you think of me, with your meek ways."
The scene was more violent than usually happened between aunt and niece, as it was the habit of Alice to bear in silence whatever rudeness it pleased Miss Wentstile to inflict. Not that the spinster was accustomed to be unkind to the girl. So long as there was no opposition to her will, Miss Wentstile was in her brusque way generous and not ill-natured. Now that her temper was tried to the extreme, her worst side made itself evident; and Alice was wise in attempting to escape. She rose from the place where she had been sewing, and prepared to leave the room.