‘Why should you? There is plenty of room.’
‘Yes; but don’t you see?—so many inferiors in the house at once might be too much for Madame Dignity. She finds one quite enough, I suspect.’
‘You do not mean that she regards the Osbornes as inferiors?’
‘Not a doubt of it. Never mind. I can take care of myself. Have you any work for me to-day?’
‘Plenty, if you are in a mood for it.’
‘I will fetch Miss Brotherton.’
‘I can do without her.’
She went, however, and did not return. As I walked home to dinner, she and Miss Brotherton passed me in the carriage, on their way, as I learned afterwards, to fetch the Osborne ladies from the rectory, some ten miles off. I did not return to Moldwarp Hall, but helped Styles in the lumber-room, which before night we had almost emptied.
The next morning I was favoured with a little desultory assistance from the two ladies, but saw nothing of the visitors. In the afternoon, and both the following days, I took my servant with me, who got through more work than the two together, and we advanced it so far that I was able to leave the room next the armoury in the hands of the carpenter and the housemaid, with sufficient directions, and did not return that week.