"What's that mean? Expect me to fetch an' carry for such a strappin' girl as that? Well, not if I know Susanna Sprigg, an' I think I do."
Whereupon, the widow, long time "assistant" to her more affluent "neighbor," Miss Maitland, shrugged her shoulders at the wind and this absurd notion, and followed Kate. She wouldn't have missed the interview between that young person and her enforced hostess "for a farm," and yet she was extremely anxious concerning the trunk and the parcels. But curiosity prevailed over caution, and she was in time to hear the rather nervous inquiry:
"Are you my Aunt Eunice—so called?"
"I am Eunice Maitland, and though I am not aunt in reality to any one, I have been lovingly nicknamed 'aunt' by many of my kin. But no matter what our relationship, you are a Maitland, I am sure, and I am very glad to see you in Marsden. Come in, come in at once. The wind is chill, and you have had a long ride," responded the precise old gentlewoman, extending her hand to Katharine, and cordially attempting to draw the girl within the shelter of the great hall.
But this hospitable attempt was rudely misunderstood by Punch, who snapped at the hand, and caused its owner to withdraw it hastily, saying: "It will be better to leave your dog outside."
"Leave my dog outside! Leave Punch, my—my—my darling! Oh! I can't do that. He has been so tenderly brought up, and is so sensitive to the cold. He has really suffered on that dreadful ride."
Miss Eunice frowned slightly, and merely remarking, "Very well, bring him in, though I caution you against Sir Philip. He is old and irritable," led the way through the wide hall into a sitting-room beyond, where a wood fire was burning on the hearth, and the furnishings were of the sort in vogue a hundred years ago. Even the disturbed young visitor thought she had never seen anything so charming as that simple interior, where everything was in keeping, and so spotlessly neat, and over which fell the cheerful radiance of the blazing logs. Unceremoniously dropping Punch, she clasped her hands in admiration, exclaiming:
"Oh, how quaint! How interesting! How unlike anything I expected to see!"
Although Miss Eunice was gratified by this tribute to her familiar surroundings, she fancied that its expression was overdone, and resented its seemingly patronizing insincerity. Placing a chair directly in the glow of the fire, she invited Katharine to take it, while she herself sat down on a straight-backed settle beyond.
Sensitive to feel the lessening cordiality of her hostess's manner, Katharine hid her feeling behind an added flippancy, as she tossed her palms outward, in a manner wholly natural to herself, but which the house-mistress again fancied an affectation, and exclaimed: "Well!"