'Very nice,' said Aunt Amelia, 'very suitable to these solemn times.'
'Yes, m'lady,' said Keziah.
'Look at my little cross Aunt Constance sent me,' said the Gidger, showing the small pearl thing with great pride. Aunt Amelia threw up her hands, while Keziah looked as if she'd like to.
'No one,' exclaimed my aunt 'can possibly be a Christian who wears a cross or a crucifix. If this poor ignorant child came to stay in this godly house we might begin to see some signs of grace. But of course,' she added hastily, 'I couldn't possibly have her; a child in the house would be too much for me.'
So then she pecked my cheek and gave me two incoherent tracts, one for myself, called 'The Scarlet Woman,' and one for Ross, entitled 'Do you drink, smoke, swear, or gamble?' To the poor Poppet she presented a book called Heaven or Hell? with lurid and appalling pictures of both states as they appeared to the mind of the writer. Then we drove to the hospital.
Ross was delighted with his tract, though he thought the questions 'rather intimate.' He said he should write one for Aunt Amelia, entitled 'Do you paint, powder, or wear bust-bodices?'
The Gidger had a second tea and so much flattering attention that I was afraid her head would be turned; the piece about the poor man who was tired on Sunday being received with cheers.
'What a row,' said a voice at the door, 'oh, what an awful, wicked, fiendish noise to make, you must be mad! I cannot spend my entire day coming in to ask the joke so as to tell the others. You, as usual, Captain Fotheringham, why, you're worse in bed.'
'Come in, sister,' four men shouted.
'No,' said the voice. 'I'm going out to fetch four cabs and keepers, and you're all off to Bedlam this night. Why, you're not having more tea?' she said, catching sight of a cup, and then she came right in and saw me sitting by the fire.