"Can she sew? Can she make blouses? Can she arrange hair fashionably? Can she put on your dress as it ought to be put on? I may as well say at once that I don't intend to take a pale, gawky girl about with me. You must look nice, as you can and will, if you have a proper maid, and I attend to your clothes. Can she alter your dresses when they get a little outré? In short, is the woman a lady's maid at all?"
"She used to be my nurse, and I love her," I answered stoutly.
"I cannot possibly have her back. Don't speak of it again. And now, Heather, I have something else to say. When you address me you are not to call me 'Lady Helen,' you are to say 'Mother.' The fact is, I can't stand sentimental nonsense. Your own mother has been in her grave for many years. If I am to act as a mother to you, I intend to have the title. Now say the word; say this—say, 'Please, mother, may I go upstairs to my private sitting-room, and may I leave you and father alone together?' Say the words, Heather."
I turned very cold, and I have no doubt my face was white.
"Yes, Heather, say the words," cried father.
His blue eyes were extremely bright, and there was a spot of vivid colour on both his cheeks. He looked at me with such a world of longing, such an expression of almost fear, that for his sake I gave in.
"I will do what you wish for my father's sake," I said, slowly. "I am not your child, and you are not my mother. My mother is in her grave, and when she lived her name was Grayson, not Dalrymple; but if it makes father happy for me to say 'mother,' I will say it."
"It makes me most oppressively happy, my little Heather," cried my father.
"Then I will do it for you, Daddy," I said.
Lady Helen frowned at me. I went slowly out of the room.