Yes, it was just as Victoria had suspected. Aunt Sophia had struck her match, and an explosion had promptly followed.
“And why not, may I ask?” demanded Honor, sitting upright upon the sofa.
“How perfectly absurd!” exclaimed Katherine, with a vehemence that was scarcely respectful.
“Oh, Aunt Sophia, you are trying to frighten us!” remarked Victoria, assuming an air of gaiety that appeared forced.
“But we don’t want to live anywhere else,” added Sophy, as if that reason were conclusive. Sophy, being only eight, had not yet fully realized the aunt for whom she was named.
Mrs. Wentworth Ward looked from one to the other of her four nieces. She appeared to be quite unmoved by their excitement. There can be no surprise for the one who strikes the match on occasions of this kind, and Mrs. Wentworth Ward prided herself always upon being equal to an occasion.
“I felt so at the time that your father died,” she continued, “but I said nothing. There was no one who could come here then to live with you, and it was not convenient for me to ask you to live with me; but in the three months which have elapsed since then, I have reached a decision. It is my way, as you know, to think over my plans carefully before making them known to others. I have thought them over, and now I tell you. It is neither seemly nor proper—and there are other reasons, too, which make it impossible—that my nieces and nephew should continue to live here alone. By the way, where is Peter?”
Peter’s sisters did not seem inclined to reply, until Victoria, fearing lest the silence should exasperate her aunt, volunteered the information that he was down at the barn.
“He went an hour ago to attend to his rabbits,” she said. “I suppose he is there still.”
“Did he not know that I was coming?” asked her aunt. “Why rabbits when I am expected? But, after all, that is neither here nor there. You are all to come and live with me. In other words, my house shall be your home henceforth. Honor shall act as my secretary. Honor, you have the ability, and there is no reason why you should not turn it to account, instead of spending your time on a sofa. Indeed, I have not yet been told why you are on the sofa. Are you ill?”