"She didn't mean anything, I am sure of that," protested Priscilla.
"Didn't mean anything! That's just the trouble. After this I must ask you to see less of Martine. Really I ought not to have let you spend so much time with her."
"Mamma knows all about Martine. She does not object."
"She will object when she learns how disrespectful Martine has been to me. As if I did not know how to arrange my own furniture."
Again Priscilla felt like smiling. Martine's hints had been understood, even though they might not be followed.
Mrs. Tilworth was a fair-minded woman, and after expressing herself clearly on the subject of Martine's misdeeds, she did not try to make her niece more uncomfortable. Nevertheless, Priscilla's dinner hour that evening was far from cheerful. She wondered if it might not be wiser, as well as more honest, to tell her aunt of her own mishap of the afternoon. Yet the more she thought of it, the less inclined was she to do this. She clung to the hope that with a further effort she could make the scarf as good as new.
That night she dreamed of wading through rivers of ink, and in her dreams she saw the bust of Julius Cæsar sitting on a bridge with many small black ink-spots mottling the bald head.
In the intervals between her dreams she tossed about restlessly, and she thought of all the little criticisms that she had ever heard anyone make about Mrs. Tilworth.
"After all, she isn't my real aunt," she murmured; "only my uncle's widow, and I suppose she just hates to have me here. But she has a kind of family pride, and thinks that it will help mamma. I know the house is furnished queerly. I heard mamma say that it is neither antique, nor modern—only second-rate. Those black walnut things are always ugly, even Martine knows better."
Yet in all her ruminations Priscilla had to admit that Mrs. Tilworth had always treated her kindly. She had no real grievance against her aunt. She was merely afraid of the reproof that her carelessness merited.