"Oh," cried Maizie, "someone is coming."
"I shall brook no intruders," cried the queen.
"No matter who it is?" asked Suzanna.
"No matter who it is. I desire to be alone with my court. However, you can peep over the banisters and see who dares come thus upon us."
Suzanna went to the top of the stairs. The maid was ushering in a lady and a boy.
"Go right upstairs," Suzanna heard the maid say. "Mrs. Bartlett's in the attic with two of the Procter children."
The visitors appeared at the top of the stairs and paused to glance in.
The lady was beautifully dressed, quite exquisitely, from the dainty little toque upon her haughty head to her small gray cloth shoes. Her eyes, flashing from pansy shades to lightest blue, were cold. Her white skin seemed to hold no possibility of color. Yet, even as she stood, the milk of it turned to rose when Drusilla gazed at her with no warmth of recognition in her glance.
The boy, about twelve, Suzanna surmised correctly, stood forward. There was some of his mother's haughtiness in his bearing, a great deal of her beauty. But added to both, a rare, high look as though always he were seeking what lay beyond his grasp, and perhaps his comprehension. He seemed altogether like a child whose emotional values did not stand clear. He gazed half prayerfully at his grandmother, as though asking and bestowing at the same time.
Breaking into the embarrassing silence, Suzanna spoke: