“Indeed it is, when your ladyship makes it up,” said Rosy; while Hyacinth wondered at this strange phenomenon of a peer’s daughter (for he knew she must be that) performing the functions of a housemaid.
“I say now, you haven’t been doing that again to-day?” Muniment asked, punching the mattress of the invalid with a vigorous hand.
“Pray, who would if I didn’t?” Lady Aurora inquired. “It only takes a minute if one knows how.” Her manner was jocosely apologetic and she seemed to plead guilty to having been absurd; in the dim light Hyacinth thought he saw her blush as if she were much embarrassed. In spite of her blushing her appearance and manner suggested to him a personage in a comedy. She sounded the letter r as a w.
“I can do it beautifully. I often do it, when Mrs. Major doesn’t come up,” Paul Muniment said, continuing to thump his sister’s couch in an appreciative but somewhat subversive manner.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt whatever!” Lady Aurora exclaimed quickly. “Mrs. Major must have so very much to do.”
“Not in the making-up of beds, I’m afraid; there are only two or three, down there, for so many,” the young man returned loudly and with a kind of inconsequent cheerfulness.
“Yes, I’ve thought a great deal about that. But there wouldn’t be room for more, you know,” said Lady Aurora, this time with all gravity.
“There’s not much room for a family of that sort anywhere—thirteen people of all ages and sizes,” her host observed. “The world’s pretty big, but there doesn’t seem room.”
“We’re also thirteen at home,” Lady Aurora hastened to mention. “We’re also rather crowded.”
“Surely you don’t mean at Inglefield?” Rosy demanded from her dusky nook.