“I think my professional ministrations are wanted here. Where is your Christian charity?”
Olivia turned round to look down upon him with the most earnest gravity.
“I shall take the liberty of asking you the same question when Regie gets caressed for his vivacity in cutting a slit in your umbrella, and when you see Beatrice consoled with an orange for some impertinence for which she ought to have her ears boxed.”
“And it’s all the fault of the step-mother?”
“Yes, all.”
“Poor lady; I am beginning to feel the deepest interest in her. No doubt she was a perfectly amiable and harmless person before this unhappy metamorphosis.”
“Yes; she was our governess—a most excellent woman and very strict with us.”
“I must see what can be done for her. I have a sermon that will just suit her, I think; one that hasn’t done duty for a long time.”
“It will be of no use. When she was our governess she never missed church; now she’s our step-mother she never goes.”
The curtains were by this time hung; the two maids from the vicarage, after helping Lucy to give the last touches to the arrangement of the furniture, had run upstairs to see that all was in order in the bedroom, and perhaps also to have a little gossip with this new friend. Mr. Brander looked about eagerly in search of more work.