“But it’s mine; it’s of no use to him, and I want it!”
“You will have to do without it, unless you care to go and fetch it yourself. But I think, on second thoughts, you will be satisfied that enough honor has been paid to your old shoe.”
Olivia blushed, and moved her shoulders with vexation.
“It was such a huge thing!” she exclaimed, impatiently. “They were always sizes and sizes too big for me.”
Mrs. Warmington’s thin lips relaxed into a smile.
“Oh!” she said; “perhaps you only wish to put a smaller one in its place.”
Olivia felt that she had, as her brothers would have termed it, “given herself away,” and she was glad to let the subject drop. Following her conductress into her bedroom, she put on her own, now dry, clothes, in silence and much meekness, thanked her in a subdued voice for her hospitality, and begged, as a final grace, the loan of an umbrella.
“It won’t be necessary. Mr. Brander will see you home.”
“Oh, no, indeed,” broke out Olivia, hastily. “I want to slip out of the house quietly without his seeing me again.”
“Do you really want that?” asked the old woman, with a searching look which set the younger blushing. “Because, if so, I can take you down this way by the back staircase. It is never used, but—”