“Aneta, you are absurd!”
“I mean it, auntie; her father’s daughter deserves help. Her father was as good a man as ever lived, and for his sake something ought to be done for his only child. As to her mother”––
“Yes, the woman who has married a person of the name of Martin, and to whose house I presume we are going”––
“Auntie, I have rather a shock to give you. Poor Maggie did mean to imply that her stepfather was in a different class of life from what he is. He is a—grocer!”
Lady Lysle put up her hand to pull the check-string.
“Pray, auntie, don’t do that. Maggie isn’t the daughter of a grocer, and she can’t help her mother having married this dreadful man. I want Maggie to have nothing to do with her stepfather in the future, and I mean to carry out my ideas, and you have got to help me.”
“Indeed, I will do nothing of the kind. What a disgraceful girl! She must leave Aylmer House at once.”
“Then I will go too,” said Aneta.
“Aneta, I never knew you behave in such a way before.”
“Come, auntie darling, you know you are the sweetest and the most loving and sympathetic person in the world; and why should you turn away from a poor little girl who quite against her own will finds herself the stepdaughter of a grocer? Maggie has given me to understand that he is a dreadful man. She is horrified with him, and what I am going now 167 to Laburnum Villa about is to try to prevent his visiting the school with his wife on Saturday. I will do the talking, dear, and you have only to sit by and look dignified.”