"Yes, and what's more, gave me breakfast. Good breakfast! Better than you can p'pare."
"She couldn't have slept a wink all night," the girl mused self-reproachfully.
Madam Crewe made no rejoinder. Apparently, she did not consider it necessary for one in Mrs. Slawson's class to sleep a wink all night.
Katherine turned away, pretending to busy herself with setting the room in order. In reality, she was very differently employed. Her stern young mind had constituted itself court, counsel, and jury, to sit in judgment upon her grandmother, and, according to the findings, convict her without privilege of appeal. She could see nothing that was not contemptible in the old woman's mode of living, her view of life. If she were poor, it would be different. There might be some excuse then, for this paltry measuring of everything by the standard of a copper cent. But, her grandmother had plenty, and more than plenty. If she stinted, it was merely to add more to an already ample fortune. And, meanwhile, youth, hope, dreams, all were vanishing. The best of life was being wilfully sacrificed to a mean whim. She knew the people 'round about, the "natives," turned up their noses at "ol' lady Crewe," and pitied her, Katherine, for being the granddaughter of a "tight-wad." It made her shrink from meeting the commonest acquaintance, when she considered how odious her position was, and how well every one knew it.
The doctor came early, while she was still smarting with a sense of her wrongs.
"I've brought a battery," he explained, indicating the instrument Sam Slawson was assisting him to unearth from the bowels of the runabout. "It's not my own. Dr. Driggs kindly lent it. I had a chat with him over the 'phone last night, after I got home, and he agrees with me that electricity will be——
"If Dr. Driggs is back, why didn't he come himself?" Katherine interrupted, so sensitively on edge that the most innocent suggestion jarred.
The young man before her looked blank for a moment. Then a tolerant smile stole into his fine, wholesome face.
"Precisely the question I put to him. But, he said he'd thank me kindly if I'd go on with the case."
Katherine winced. She knew why Dr. Driggs was not keen on coming to Crewesmere.