“It’s most extraordinary: and her ladyship never even missed you. And now she has gone off to Brighton for a week.”
“Well, it is quite immaterial to me. I never wish to see her again,” I rejoined in an emphatic whisper.
“It certainly is most mortifying,” said Miss Skuce, seating herself in Emma’s chair, and stretching out her goloshed feet. “To be asked to the Abbey, and to puff the news everywhere—and then to be forgotten! I had some eggs here; but, as your mother is ill, I won’t leave them.”
“No, pray don’t, on any account.”
“The Chalgroves have left the Moate, gone home, and nothing settled about the match. Young Somers is a fool. There is a rumor that he is in love with some wretched girl who hasn’t a penny, and Lady Hildegarde is nearly beside herself! Lady Polexfen told Captain Blackjohn, and he told young Ferrars, who told his mother, who told me. By the way, Lady Polexfen—Maude, you know—is making herself the talk of the place, the way she is flirting with Captain Blackjohn. However, I’m forgetting that you are not Mrs. Hayes; we should not talk gossip to girls. Well, I must be going. I hope your mother will be better to-morrow; good-by. Oh, by the way, I quite forgot to wish you the compliments of the season, and all the usual sort of thing. I don’t believe in a merry Christmas.”
“Neither do I,” I answered with all my heart.
“Well, good-by, good-by,” and seizing the eggs, she trotted down-stairs.
The next day, Emma was much worse.