“Speak lower, if you please, ma’am.”
“Really!” cried Aunt Anne, “this is growing insufferable! My good woman, you quite forget your position here. Are you aware that I am your senior by many years, and have had great experience in a sick room?”
“Possibly, madam. I am not doubting what you say. I am only going by the instructions I received from Sir Denton Hayle. Mr Elthorne must be saved from everything likely to produce a nervous shock.” Aunt Anne looked her up and down with indignant scorn, and then marched—it could hardly be called walking, the movement was so mechanical and studied—straight to the door, and went out without a word.
“Poor woman!” said Nurse Elisia, softly; “and yet she is a sweet, amiable lady at heart.”
She went back to the dressing room to tell Isabel that her aunt had gone, but the room was empty.
Chapter Nineteen.
Maria Causes Trouble.
“For two pins I’d have our things packed up and go back at once, Dan; that I would,” cried Saxa Lydon, as she stood before the long cheval glass in the best bedroom at the Elthornes’. “Here, you, give me that pin off the dressing table.”