“You cannot influence me, Pauline. I love you too well to desert you. Now I am going into the house. You can discuss me then with your sister to your heart’s content.”
Miss Tredgold went very slowly towards the old and dilapidated house. When she reached the hall door she turned and looked around her.
“I certainly have tough work before me. How am I to manage? If I were not thinking so much of Alice, I should leave these impertinent, neglected, silly girls to their fate. But no—I seem to see my sister’s eyes, to hear her voice. I can so well understand what she would really want me to do. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved sister. I am free, hampered by no ties. I will reform these wild young nieces. I will not be easily deterred.”
Miss Tredgold clasped her hands before her. The moon was rising in a silvery bow in the sky; the air was deliciously fresh and balmy.
“The place is healthy, and the children are strong,” she thought, “notwithstanding their bad food and their disreputable, worn-out clothes. They are healthy, fresh, good-looking girls. But this is summer-time, and in summer-time one puts up with discomforts for the sake of air like this. But what about winter? I have no doubt they have scarcely any fires, and the house must be damp. As the children grow older they will develop rheumatism and all kinds of troubles. Yes, my duty is plain. I must look after my nieces, both soul and body, for the future.”
As Miss Tredgold thought these last thoughts she re-entered the house. She walked through the desolate rooms. It was now twilight, but no one thought of lighting lamps, or drawing curtains, or shutting windows. Miss Tredgold stumbled as she walked. Presently she found that she had wandered in the neighborhood of the kitchen. She had no intention of bearding Betty in her den—she had no idea that there was a Betty—but as she was near the kitchen, and as under that doorway alone there streamed a light, she opened the door.
“Is there any one inside?” she asked.
A grunt in the far distance came by way of response. The fire was out in the stove, and as Miss Tredgold grew accustomed to the gloom she saw in the farthest corner something that resembled the stout form of a woman, whose legs rested on one chair and her body on another. A guttering dip candle was close to her side, and a paper book was held almost under her nose.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Miss Tredgold, “but I have come for a light. Will you kindly inform me where I can get a candle?”
“There ain’t none in the house.”