She saw that one trouble had come at least; and looking intently at Sidney's grim face—she had busied herself with the bread and butter plate to get a good look at it—she read its story more plainly than he would have liked.
Outside the door she paused and put "this and that together"—this in the drawing-room, and that in the parlour, and jumped at once at the right conclusion, with a rapidity that did infinite credit to her seventeen years. Seventeen years then, and rather shorter than ever, if that were possible.
"He has been courting Harriet—I know he has!" she said; "and Harriet's been in a tantrum, and said something to cross him—that's it!"
She missed a step and shook up the tea-things that she was carrying down-stairs. This recalled her to the duties of her situation.
"One thing at a time, Mattie, my dear," she said, in a patronizing way to herself, as she descended to the lower regions. In those lower regions poor Ann Packet created another divergence of thought. Ann's ankles continued to swell—she had been much on her feet during the last heavy wash, and the gloomy thought had stolen to her, that her new calamity—she was a woman born for calamities—would end in the hospital.
This idea having just seized her, she communicated it at once to Mattie, upon her re-appearance in the kitchen.
"Mattie," said Ann, lugubriously, "I've been a good friend to you, all my life—ain't I?"
"To be sure you have," was the quick answer.
"When you came here first, a reg'lar young rip, I took to you, taught you what was tidiness, which you didn't know any more than the babe unborn, did you?"
"Not much more—don't you feel so well to-night, Ann?"