The cat smiled to itself at the poor mouse’s writhings under its playful pats.
“She conformeth—ay: but I scarce need warn you, my son, that there be many who conform outwardly, where the heart is not accordant with the actions. I trust, in very deed, that it were an unjust matter so to speak of Mistress Holland.”
Saying which, the cat withdrew its paw, and suffered the mouse to escape to its hole until another little excitement should be agreeable to it. In other words, the priest said good-bye, and left Mr Roberts in a state of mingled relief for the moment and apprehension for the future. For a few minutes that unhappy gentleman sat lost in meditation. Then rising with a muttered exclamation, wherein “meddlesome praters” were the only words distinguishable, he went to the foot of the stairs, and called up them, “Pandora!”
“There, now! You’ll hear of something!” said Gertrude to her sister, as she stood trying on a new apron before the glass. “You’d best go down. When Father’s charitably-minded he says either ‘Pan’ or ‘Dorrie.’ ‘Pandora’ signifies he’s in a taking.”
“I have done nought to vex him that I know of,” replied Pandora, rising from her knees before a drawer wherein she was putting some lace tidily away.
“Well, get not me in hot water,” responded Gertrude. “Look you, Pan, were this lace not better to run athwart toward the left hand?”
“I cannot wait to look, True; I must see what Father would have.”
As Pandora hastened downstairs, her aunt, Mrs Collenwood, came out of her room and joined her.
“I hear my brother calling you,” she said. “I would fain have a word with him, so I will go withal.”
The ladies found Mr Roberts wandering to and fro in the dining-room, with the aspect of a very dissatisfied man. He turned at once to his daughter.