"Céline looked cautiously around her."—[page 159.]
Hagar mumbled something, not exactly intended to be a speech but simply a small growl, illustrative of her mood. Then, as if her dignity had been sufficiently asserted, she relaxed her grimness, and looking kindly down upon the girl, and pushing her toward the big chair, said:
"But law! child, you look fagged out. Sit down, sit down, and don't mind an old woman's grumbling."
"Did I ever?" laughed the girl, sinking into the big chair as if indeed willing to rest. "But I can't sit here long, nursie; my day's work, or rather my night's work, is not yet finished."
"Not yet? Oh, Madeline, my little nursling, give up these wild plans and plots; they will bring you no good."
"Won't they?" nodding significantly. "I think they will do me good, and you, too, Nurse Hagar; and before very long, too. Why, bless you, these precious plotters won't wait for me to bring them into my net; they are tumbling in headlong—all of them. They are helping me, with all their might, to bring about their own downfall. Hagar," and the girl leaned suddenly forward and looked closely into the old woman's face, "I want you to come back to Oakley."
Hagar started back as if struck by a knife. She was about to open her lips and set free a torrent of indignant protest, when the girl lifted her hand, interrupting her in the old characteristic way.
"Wait until I explain, auntie. I want you to go to Oakley to-morrow, at the hour when Mr. John Arthur is always supposed to be taking his after-dinner nap. Just after dinner, I want you to see Madame Cora; manage it in your own way, but see her you must."
"I won't!" broke in the old woman.