She picked them up from the table, and held them out; the top one was “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” in paper cover.
The Lambent sisters had risen, and were darting indignant looks at Hazel’s mother before she drew their attention to the books they were leaving upon the table; now their anger was hot indeed.
“We brought them for you to read,” cried Rebecca indignantly. “They were for your good. Mrs Thorne, your conduct is insolent in the extreme.”
“Insolent in the extreme,” assented Beatrice.
“I am too unwell to argue with you, ladies,” said Mrs Thorne loftily. “Cissy, my child, take those into the kitchen, and give them to one of the school children as they come by. Mabel, my dear, bring mamma a glass of water.”
She took not the slightest further notice of her visitors, who looked at one another for a few moments, and then left the house, marching by the window with stately stride, while Mrs Thorne leant back in her chair, saying to herself—
“Next time they call I hope they will remember that I am a lady.”
That same evening, as she sat alone, she drew the letter of which she had spoken from her pocket, and read it through again, the second perusal giving her fresh strength and increasing dignity.
“I shall certainly insist now,” she said musingly, as she refolded the letter and tapped her left forefinger with the edge, “upon Hazel entering into a matrimonial alliance with Edward Geringer. He is older, certainly; but what of that? He is rich and loves her, and will make her an admirable husband; and when, by-and-by he leaves her, she will still be young and handsome, and, what is better, rich, and not left, as I have been, at the mercy of the world—Lambents and people of that class. Yes, I am in a position now to insist, and I shall write to Edward Geringer at once. Perhaps his coming would have a favourable effect upon Hazel’s illness—a foolish, weak girl, to persist in going to that house when I so strongly advised her not.”
Mrs Thorne sat musing and building her châteaux en Espagne, while the children amused themselves in the garden.