“I am certain she knows,” thought the little girl. “But, oh, this is terrible! Has that awful Miss Henderson told her? What shall I do? I do not think I will wait until the week is up; I think I will run away at once.”
“Answer my question, Evelyn,” said her aunt.
Evelyn did mutter a tiny piece of information with regard to the said reign.
“I shall question you on your history from time to time,” said Lady Frances. “I take an interest in this school experiment. Whether it will last or not I cannot say; but I may as well say one thing—if for any reason your presence is not found suitable in the school where I have now sent you, you will go to a very different order of establishment and to a much stricter régime elsewhere.”
“What is a régime?” asked Evelyn.
“I am too tired to answer your silly questions. Now go and read your book in that corner. Do not make a noise; I have a headache.”
Evelyn slouched away, looking as cross and ill-tempered as a little girl could look.
“Audrey darling,” called her mother in a totally different tone of voice, “play me that pretty thing of Chopin’s which you know I am so fond of.”
Audrey approached the piano and began to play.
Evelyn read her book for a time without attending much to the meaning of the words. Then she observed that her uncle, who had been asleep behind his newspaper, had risen and left the room. Here was the very opportunity that she sought. If she could only get her Uncle Edward quite by himself, and when he was in the best of good humors, he might give her some money. She could not run away without money to go with. Jasper, she knew, had not a large supply. Evelyn, with all her ignorance of many things, had early in her life come into contact with the want of money. Her mother had often and often been short of funds. When Mrs. Wynford was short, the ranch did without even, at times, the necessaries of life. Evelyn had a painful remembrance of butterless breakfasts and meatless dinners; of shoes which were patched so often that they would scarcely keep out the winter snows; of little garments turned and turned again. Then money had come back, and life became smooth and pleasant; there was an abundance of good food for the various meals, and Evelyn had shoes to her heart’s content, and the sort of gay-colored garments which her mother delighted in. Yes, she understood Jasper’s appeal for money, and determined on no account to go to that good woman’s protection without a sufficient sum in hand.