“Oh, very well; I suppose it’s quite right. It was her father’s wish.”
“And yours, I am sure,” he said, nodding meaningly as he reached the window and passed out.
“I hope I’ve done right,” said Aunt Anne; “but Ralph is so strange, he may find fault. I’ll go up and talk to him, and gradually introduce the subject.”
Her countenance brightened, as she thought of this way out of a difficulty, and rising and smoothing her stiff silk dress, whose rustling she liked to hear, she went out into the hall, and began slowly to ascend the stairs.
“It is very trying to me,” she said to herself. “Isabel does not seem to care for him a bit; and as to the two Lydon girls, really if any gentleman had behaved so cavalierly to me as Neil and Alison do to them, I certainly should not have put up with it.” She paused for awhile rather breathlessly at the top of the stairs, and then went on to her brother’s room and turned the handle, but the door was evidently bolted inside.
For the moment she seemed surprised, but she went on toward the next door, that of the dressing room attached, but, as she reached it, this door was opened, and the nurse appeared, to step out into the corridor, and close the door behind her.
“Did you try the other door, ma’am?” she said softly.
“Yes; it is bolted. Never mind; I’ll go through here.”
“Not now, ma’am,” said the nurse quickly, and in a voice hardly above a whisper; but there was plenty of decision in her tones.
“Not now?” said Aunt Anne haughtily. “My good woman, what do you mean?”