“Don’t throw cold water on my charming conceits!” pleaded Hatty. “Now go in and face my Aunt Kezia—if you dare.”
We found her cutting out flannel petticoats in the parlour. My Aunt Kezia’s brows were drawn together, and my Aunt Kezia’s lips were thin; and I trembled. However, she took no note of us, but went on tearing up flannel, and making little piles of it upon the table end.
Sophy, with heroic bravery, attacked the citadel at once.
“Well, Aunt, this is pretty news!”
“What is?” said my Aunt Kezia, standing up straight and stiff.
“Why, this about Fanny and Ambrose Catterall.”
“Oh, that! I wish there were nothing worse than that in this world.” My Aunt Kezia spoke as if she would have preferred some other world, where things went straighter than they do in this.
“Hatty said you were put out about it, Aunt.”
“That’s all Hatty knows. I think ’tis a blunder, and Fanny will find it out, likely enough. But if that were all— Girls, ’tis nigh dinner-time. You had better take your bonnets off.”
“What is the matter with my Aunt Kezia?” said I to Sophy, as we went up-stairs.