At length Madam Cavendish yielded, saying, scornfully: "Well, my dear, it is more your affair than mine. Invite her here if you will. I wash my hands of it. Only don't ask me to be intimate with the inn-keeper's widow; for I won't. And that's all about it."
"My dear grandma, you shall never see or hear of her, if you do not like to do so. You seldom leave your two rooms. And she shall never enter either unless you send for her," answered Emma.
"So be it then, my dear. And now let me go to sleep. I always want to go to sleep after an argument," said Madam Cavendish, closing her eyes and sinking back in her arm-chair.
Emma Cavendish stooped and kissed her, and then left the room.
In fifteen minutes after she had written and dispatched to the office at Wendover a telegram to this effect:
"Blue Cliffs, April 29th, 18—
"Dear Aunt:—Come home to me here as soon as possible. I will write to-day.
Emma Cavendish."
And in the course of that day she did write a kind and comforting letter to the bereaved and suffering woman, expressing much sympathy with her in her affliction, inviting her to come and live at Blue Cliffs for the rest of her life, and promising all that an affectionate niece could do to make her life easy and pleasant.
Miss Cavendish had but just finished this letter, when Mr. Craven Kyte was announced.