‘I am not going to encumber myself,’ she answered. ‘I always disliked girls, and I shall certainly not make Acton Manor an idiot asylum.’
‘And mind,’ added Augusta, ‘you won’t cone to me for the season! I have no notion of your leaving me all the dull part of the year for some gay widow at a watering-place, and then expecting me to go out with you in London.’
‘By Heaven!’ broke out Mervyn, ‘they shall stay here, if
only to balk your spite. My sisters shall not be driven from pillar to post the very day their mother is put under ground.’
‘Some respectable lady,’ began Robert.
‘Some horrid old harridan of a boarding-house keeper,’ shouted Mervyn, the louder for his interference. ‘Ay, you would like it, and spend all their fortunes on parsons in long coats! I know better! Come here, Phœbe, and listen. You shall live here as you have always done, Maria and all, and keep the Fennimore woman to mind the children. Answer me, will that content you? Don’t go looking at Robert, but say yes or no.’
Mervyn’s innuendo had deprived his offer of its grace, but in spite of the pang of indignation, in spite of Robert’s eye of disapproval, poor desolate Phœbe must needs cling to her home, and to the one who alone would take her and her poor companion. ‘Mervyn, thank you; it is right!’
‘Right! What does that mean? If any one has a word to say against my sisters being under my roof, let me hear it openly, not behind my back. Eh, Juliana, what’s that?’
‘Only that I wonder how long it will last,’ sneered Lady Acton.
‘And,’ added Robert, ‘there should be some guarantee that they should not be introduced to unsuitable acquaintance.’