“I did hear you, Nesta,” said Marcia. “How are you, dear? Of course, I’m not angry with you. You wouldn’t have said it to my face, would you?”
“Well, I suppose not,” said Nesta.
“Are you Miss Aldworth, really?” said Penelope, the youngest of the Carter girls.
She was a black-eyed girl, with a great lot of fussy curly hair. She had rosy cheeks and white teeth. She looked up merrily at Marcia with a quizzical expression in her dancing eyes.
“Yes, I am Miss Aldworth, and I have come to see my sisters, and to thank you for being so good to them.”
“How is mother to-day, Marcia?” said Nesta.
“Much, much better.”
Nesta slipped her hand inside Marcia’s arm. She wanted, as she expressed it afterwards to Penelope, to make up to Marcia. She wanted to coax her to do something, which she did not think Marcia was likely to do.
“I generally have my own way,” she said, “except with that stupid old Marcia. She never yields to any one, although she has such a kind look. Oh, I know she was good to mother that dreadful, dreadful, dreadful night; but I want to shut that tight from my memory.”
“Yes, do, for Heaven’s sake,” said Penelope. “You always give me the jumps when you speak of it.”