To be sure—where could she write her to come? There fell a silence.
Then he spoke, and curtly. “In three months you will be of age, a fact which no doubt your mother has remembered. Until then I forbid it; after that it is your affair. In the interim, it has been my intention, and I meant to say as much to you, to make you acquainted with your affairs. I had expected you to live on in my house. Under the conditions you propose you will, of course, make your own arrangements.”
Alexina, listening, looked at him. One would have said tears were welling. Had he raised his eyes to hers, put out a hand—
But he returned to his paper.
Her cheeks blazed, her head went up, and something ran like a vivifying flame over her face. It was a pity Austen did not see her then. He demanded beauty in a woman. He should have seen his young niece angry. Then she turned and went up to her room and wrote her mother to come. But, the letter written, she leaned upon the desk and broke into wild and passionate crying.
CHAPTER FIVE
Alexina for several years had been made partially acquainted with her affairs.
The evening her uncle chose to go over the whole with her, Alexina, in the midst of it, put a hand timidly on his. “I am grateful, Uncle Austen, you know that,” she said.