"Now I know what you are going to say, You are going to blame me. Whatever happens in this house you always blame me. And perhaps you're right. Perhaps I am a nuisance—a burden—would be far better dead and buried. I wish I were!"
When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house all over.
All was in order; at least in as much order as was to be expected the hour before dinner. The bowl of half-peeled potatoes stood on the back kitchen "sink;" the roast was down before the fire; the knives were ready for cleaning. Evidently Elizabeth flight had not been premeditated.
"It's all nonsense about her going mad. She has as sound a head as I have," said Hilary to Johanna, who began to look seriously uneasy. "She might have run away in a fit of passion, certainly; and yet that is improbable; her temper is more sullen than furious. And having no lack of common sense she must know that doing a thing like this is enough to make her lose her place at once."
"Yes," said Johanna, mournfully, "I'm afraid after this she must go."
"Wait and see what she has to say for herself." pleaded Hilary. "She will surely be back in two or three minutes."
But she was not, nor even in two or three hours.
Her mistresses' annoyance became displeasure, and that again subsided into serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased talking over and over the incident which gave the sole information to be arrived at; rose, dressed, and came down to the kitchen. There, after long and anxious consultation, Hilary, observing that "Somebody had better do something," began to prepare the dinner as in pre-Elizabethan days; but the three ladies' appetites were small.
About three in the afternoon, Hilary, giving utterance to the hidden alarm of all, said—
"I think, sisters, I had better go down as quickly as I can to Mrs.
Hand's."