"I shan't," said the girl, tossing her handsome arms over her head as she lay at full length upon a sofa in her dressing-room, and ruffling her dark hair with her wilful hands; "I shan't. I detest him; you know I detest him. What is he always watching me, and trying to catch my eye, for? He's a bad cruel man, and he comes here for no good. What's the matter with my aunt? She was very well on Monday."
"I don't know indeed, Miss Annette; the old complaint, I suppose."
"The old complaint! what old complaint? It's all nonsense, in my belief, and he persuades her she's ill for a purpose of his own. At all events, let him see her and be done with it; I shan't go down to dinner."
"Oh yes, you will," said Mrs. Stothard, who had been quietly laying out Annette's dress, pouring hot water into a basin, and disposing combs and brushes on the toilet-table, "Oh yes, you will. You'll never be so foolish as to make a quarrel with your uncle and aunt about such a thing as that, and have the servants talking of it. Come, my dear, get up; you've no time to spare."
She looked steadily at the girl as she spoke, and put one hand under her shoulder, raising her from the pillow. Annette shrunk from her for a moment with a look partly cowed, partly of avoidance; the next she let her feet down to the floor, and stood up passively, but with her sullenest expression of face.
"Where's Mary?" she said.
"Busy with Mrs. Derinzy. She has been very poorly this afternoon. I'll help you to dress."
She did so silently; and Annette did not speak, but, like a froward child, twitched herself about, and made her task as troublesome as possible--a manoeuvre which Mrs. Stothard quietly ignored.
"Where is the odious man?" she asked suddenly, when she stood dressed for dinner before her toilet-glass, into which she did not look.
"In the drawing-room with the Captain; you had better join them."