“Oh, you can say what you like—you always do—”
“Beg your pardon, Faith; I very generally don’t.”
“You haven’t a bit of feeling for a poor widow. I hope you may never be a widow—”
“Thank you; I’ll have a care of that. Now, Lettice! jump up, maid, and don your hat and mantle, and I will run down with you to Selwick while there’s a bit of light. My Lady Lettice thought you’d best be there to-night, so you could be up early and of some use to your Aunt Edith.”
It was not Temperance Murthwaite’s custom to let the grass grow under her feet, and the three miles which lay between the little house at Keswick and Selwick Hall were put behind her and Lettice when another hour was over.
Selwick Hall stood on the bank of Derwentwater, and was the residence of Lettice’s grandmother, the widowed Lady Louvaine, her daughter Edith, her grandson Aubrey, and Hans Floriszoon, the orphan nephew of an old friend, Mynheer Stuyvesant, who had been adopted into the family when a little child. It was also theoretically the abode of Lettice’s Aunt Faith, who was Aubrey’s mother, and who practically flitted from the one house to the other at her rather capricious will. It had become her habit to depart to Keswick whenever her feelings were outraged at Selwick; and as Faith’s feelings were of that order which any thing might outrage, and nobody knew of it till they were outraged, her abode during the last six years had been mainly with the sister who never petted her, but from whom she would stand ten times more than from the tenderer hearts at Selwick.
Lettice’s hand was on the door when it opened, and there stood her Cousin Aubrey.
“Good even, Aunt Temperance,” said he. “You are right in time for supper.”
“Thank you, Master Aubrey Late-hours,” replied she; “’tis a bit too late for my supper, and Lettice’s likewise, without she can eat two of a night. How is it with my Lady Lettice? I hope, lad, you help and comfort her all you can.”
Aubrey looked rather astonished.