"You don't like her, Grandmother?"
No reply.
"Why now, because she's not a Christian?"
"No-o, my dear, I can't tell 'ee why. I don't like her: why, I don't even know myself; but there 'tis."
"But she's so good with aunt, and so patient."
"Yes—"
"Well, why then?"
"There 'tis, and that's all there is about it."
I was puzzled, as Grandmother was always so generous. There must be some mystery about Maud. Her beauty, a strange and new and troubling thing in my imagination. Her inhuman patience, equalling even my Grandmother's. And her carpet-slippers. She moved absolutely without sound.
Soon after her arrival there was a new development. Aunt Jael's indigestion and sleeplessness and ill temper had been getting steadily worse till at last Grandmother had called in Doctor le Mesurier. He prescribed a stimulant: my Great-Aunt was to take a small dose of brandy two or three times every twenty-four hours. Say a small dose at one of her nocturnal repasts and a sip in a wine-glass after dinner. It became one of my duties to go up to her bedroom after dinner, obtain the bottle from the secret cupboard, and pour out the measure. I brought it down and laid it on the corner of the table near her fireside perch.