‘Ma, here’s a letter from uncle. I’ll open it.
I hope he’s not crusty about that horrid low millinery business.’
‘Yes, do,’ called back a voice across the tiled passage. ‘I’ve had no time. This girl has put me about so with Mrs. Leeson’s luncheon that I’ve not had a moment. Of all the sluts I’ve ever been plagued with, she’s the very worst, and so I tell her till I’m ready to drop. What is it then, Ida?’ as an inarticulate noise was heard.
‘Ma! ma! uncle is a lord!’ came back in a gasp.
‘What?’
‘Uncle’s a lord! Oh!’
‘Your uncle! That stick of a man! Don’t be putting your jokes on me, when I’m worrited to death!’ exclaimed Mrs. Morton, in fretful tones.
‘No joke. It’s true—Lord Northmoor.’ And this brought Mrs. Morton out of the kitchen in her apron and bib, with a knife in one hand and a bunch of parsley in the other. She was a handsome woman, in the same style as Ida, but her complexion had grown harder than accorded with the slightly sentimental air she assumed when she had time to pity herself.
‘It is! it is!’ persisted Ida, reading scraps from the letter; ‘“Title and estates devolve on me—family bereavements—elder line extinct.”‘